Ehrhardt - Famous Fathers and Other Stories

Famous Fathers

& OTHER STORIES

Pia Z. Ehrhardt

ebook ISBN: 978-1-59692-902-9

M P Publishing Limited

12 Strathallan Crescent
Douglas
Isle of Man
IM2 4NR
viaUnited Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)1624 618672
email: info@mp-publishing.com

Originally published by:
MacAdam Cage
155 Sansome Street, Suite 550
San Francisco, CA 94104
www.MacAdamCage.com
Copyright 2007 by Pia Z. Ehrhardt
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ehrhardt, Pia Z.
Famous fathers & other stories / by Pia Z. Ehrhardt.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-59692-212-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. WomenFiction. I. Title. II. Title: Famous fathers and other stories.
PS3605.H75F36 2007
813.6dc22

Paperback Edition June, 2007
ISBN 978-1-59692-235-8

Book and jacket design by Dorothy Carico Smith

Some of these stories have appeared elsewhere, in some cases in a different form: Running the Room in Zoetrope: All Story Extra and Columbia: A Journal of Print; Someones Flowered Dress in Monkey Bicycle; A Man in Spork and the anthology A Cast of Characters and Other Stories (MacAdam/Cage, 2006); Abita Springs in Gingko Tree Review; Intermediate Goals in Thought Magazine and The Drama; Stop on Pindeldyboz.com and in Opium; The Long Part of the Day in Bridge Magazine; Tell Me in Italian and Famous Fathers in Narrative Magazine; How It Floods and Driveway in McSweeneys Quarterly.

Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

For Malcolm and Andrew

Yet why not say what happened?

Robert Lowell

M Y MOTHER COMES TO STAY WITH US ONCE A WEEK BECAUSE for the last eight months shes been having an affair with Eddie Royce, our city councilman. Wednesdays she drives to Mandeville from Lumberton in time to have an early dinner with my husband, Howard, and me. Howards reserved, or tries to be, because hes fond of my father and not comfortable harboring my mother under these circumstances. Shes all charm with him, flirty and interested in what hes doing, and when shes like this shes hard to resist. Shes lost ten pounds, and tonight at dinner she asks Howard if he notices, and when he says yes, she explains thats why shes picking at her food, not because it isnt delicious. There is room for one bite of dessert, she says, reaching for his plate with her fork, and he pushes his pie over to share. Shes meeting Eddie at 6:30 and I ask Howard if hell do the dishes so we can get across the Causeway a little early. He says, Sure, but doesnt look too happy about it.

My mother and I get in the car and drive across the lake to New Orleans where for the last year and a half weve been working toward apprenticeship degrees in culinary arts at Delgado Community College. My mother is a wonderful cook and our dream is to open a restaurant; shell be in the kitchen, and Ill be out front running the room. Weve found a tiny cottage on the edge of the Warehouse District, and the act of sale is in a couple of weeks. My dads an accountant and hes secured the financing, and Howards going to help out with some of the renovation. Its a family project, but Ive been trying to slow things down because I dont know where this affair is going. Right now Mom couldnt crack an egg. Dad doesnt know about Eddie and hes happy his girls are doing this restaurant together.

On the Causeway my mother fidgets in her seat. Were in my Miata and her perfume is overpowering. The first semester she actually went to the classes with me, pre-Eddie, and driving across the lake the talk was all restaurant. She came up with the name Bijou and I like it, although I know a poodle with that name. Tonight I try to get her on track again, to see if we can figure out the timetable, but its hard to pull her away from Eddie-talk. She spares no detail, chatters like a teenager about how Eddie loves to touch her hair so now she only blows it dry and doesnt spray it anymore. Last week she pulled a cassette tape from her purse and pushed it into the player in my car. Eddie had recorded himself doing ordinary things for her, like reading his morning paper or describing what he saw out the car window on his way to a meeting. Every ten minutes or so he would say, I love you, Gail, out of nowhere, and she had punched the buttons and fast-forwarded, looking for those places, touching the hollow of her neck when she found them. He made the tape to keep her company on her drive back to Lumberton. She also played me part of one shed made for him of herself whisper-singing Peggy Lee songs, Theres a Small Hotel and It Never Entered My Mind.Id like a copy. I remember that voice lullabying me to sleep, and how shed put her arms around my dads neck and sing in his ear until he brushed her away like a moth. My parents used to look happy. Their problems were the kind everyones parents seemed to have, like bill paying and jealous moments, stuff that blew over. But now that Im married I understand what can happen over time, how you run out of new material and repeat yourself, zone out of your own thoughts because theyre kind of dull, and so what? You go to bed at night and say, was your day any good, dear, mine was fine, and lets hope tomorrow is like today, and months go by and you lose sight of the fact that youre way out of range, a hundred miles from thrilling.

My mother says shes in love again at fifty-seven, and shes a little embarrassed about it but cant help herself. I usually enjoy when shes acting like a middle-aged version of me at twenty, full of happy energy, always ready to change plans, go with the moment. Tonight, though, shes antsy and I want to slap her and tell her to get over it. Im feeling bad because I forgot to kiss Howard good-bye on the way out the door, and I picture him bent over the dishwasher, moving water glasses so the mugs will fit. Mom tells me Eddie and his wife are fighting about this addition theyre putting on their house, and shes completely on Eddies side. Ive seen this lopsided intensity off and on my whole life. When I was a teenager, she and my dad gave me constant trouble about spending too much time away from home. I loved staying at my friend Bettys because her parents left us alone to talk all night and sleep til noon. And I loved Joey Vujevik, a slide guitarist who played in local clubs. For three years they ragged on me about how pathetic I must look to people, sitting there all those nights waiting for him to finish. I figured my dad was jealous, so I tried to confide in my mom, woman to woman, about how much I liked watching Joey play, but she and my dad were a united front. She didnt want to hear about the dark rooms and my table near the stage, how his eyes found me, glowing and warm, and pushed me back in my chair.

Im dropping my mom off to meet Eddie at a bar called Sweet Williams, where politicians take their girlfriends. Shes checking her lipstick for the fifth time, smoothing powder around her mouth. Goddamn lines, she says. Do you like my perfume? Shes lovely and ridiculous. Her hairs cut short and she has on black pants and a shiny red blouse tucked in to show her flat stomach, a pretty silver pin Eddie bought her over her heart. She wears the skinny bracelets Dad gave her for Christmas. As they slip up and down her arm, they make a soft chanking noise.