Just before we sit down for lunch, I’m scanning the photos arranged on the mantle and I’m drawn to one old black-and-white photo of Gena.
I figure she must have been about my age when that photo was taken. She looks like Ingrid Bergman in Voyage to Italy. That beautiful, that sophisticated. But it’s her eyes that draw me in, filled with a mesmerizing yearning and warmth.
‘What beautiful eyes,’ I say aloud as I pick up the picture, to no one in particular, not realizing that Gena is standing behind me.
‘Why, thank you,’ she says. ‘Bob always tells me, it was my eyes that stole his heart and he had to marry me to win it back.’
And as she says it, I look from the photo into her eyes, and realize that they’re not the same eyes. Gena’s eyes are clouded, as if she’s on too many conflicting prescription meds, and her mouth is bent out of shape at the corners, the way a nail kinks if you don’t hit it straight on the head with the hammer when it’s already halfway in the wall.
And I wonder what it was that hit Gena that way to bend her out of shape. I look at her now and she looks kind of crazy and lost. But, I have to say, she’s putting on a good front.
Jack doesn’t see any of this. He doesn’t see the little cracks. He’s not ready to look past the facade that Bob and Gena are putting out. He’s too wrapped up in the Bob thing.
Jack’s a smart guy, perceptive. But sometimes I despair. It’s not that he can’t see through people. He just doesn’t want to. He needs to believe in them too much, to reinforce his idea of who he is and what his place is in the world. In Jack’s eyes, Bob can do no wrong.
Now I see them together, I get the feeling that Bob sees Jack in a similar way, as the kind of guy who’s got a great future ahead of him. The kind of guy he could use, and more. That’s the other thing I realize now that I see them together: Bob sees Jack as the son he never had.
They don’t have children of their own, Bob and Gena, which is kind of odd when I think about it because I can’t think of a politician that doesn’t. Even the ones that are still in the closet, who eventually get caught with their pants around their ankles, having their asses reamed in their office on Capitol Hill by some hot piece of male fluff they picked up in a gay bar and then bent the rules to employ as their private secretary. Even those guys have a wife and kids at home.
Bob and Gena don’t have kids, they have a dog instead. Some kind of terrier. And they’ve given it the name of the child they never had. They’ve named it Sebastian. And they treat it like a child too. Because this is a special occasion and they have guests, Gena has dressed it up in a doggie bow tie and tux.
Some people are cat people, some are dog people. I’m both. I love dogs. But not small dogs. And definitely not this small dog.
This dog thinks it’s cute. When it really isn’t. It’s just a compulsive attention-seeker. Its favorite toy is a plastic dog. Same breed, same coloring, just smaller. Like a replica of itself rendered as a cartoon character. A plastic dog that squeaks. And its favorite pastime is to trot around the house like it owns it, carrying the plastic dog in its mouth and biting down every few seconds so it squeaks. It drops the drool-covered plastic version of itself at my feet and waits there expectantly until I pick it up and throw it. I throw it and within ten seconds it’s come back for more and the plastic toy is back at my feet again, covered in even more drool.
Bob and Jack are sitting on the couch having a man-to-man talk about politics and the state of the world, Gena’s in the kitchen and I’m left playing fetch with this stupid dog and its plastic doppelgänger. After three or four rounds of this, I’m already bored. The toy is a ball of drool with plastic inside and I’m loath to pick it up because I don’t know where this dog has been. Thankfully, at that point, Gena calls us all in for lunch.
We’re sitting at a beautiful turn of the century antique oak dining table with lion’s paws for feet. It’s far too big for four people. Bob sits at one end, Gena at the other, Jack and I opposite each other in the middle, and it feels like there’s a yawning space between us.
The table is laid with china plates and sterling silver cutlery, and laden with pewter dishes that have been in Bob’s family for generations. We’re about to tuck into a traditional Columbus Day meal that Gena’s prepared for us. Salted cod, sardines, anchovies, rice and beans. I never even knew there was traditional meal for Columbus Day, except meatballs and spaghetti, but apparently there is – fisherman’s food, the way they ate on the Santa Maria.