The time traveler's wife(158)

Clare: Alba's reward for being patient at the galleries while Charisse and I look at art is to go to Ed Debevic's, a faux diner that does a brisk tourist trade. As soon as we walk in the door it's sensory overload circa 1964. The Kinks are playing at top volume and there's signage everywhere:

"If you're really a good customer you'd order more!!!"

"Please talk clearly when placing your order."

"Our coffee is so good we drink it ourselves!"

Today is evidently balloon-animal day; a gentleman in a shiny purple suit whips up a wiener dog for Alba and then turns it into a hat and plants it on her head. She squirms with joy. We stand in line for half an hour and Alba doesn't whine at all; she watches the waiters and waitresses flirt with each other and silently evaluates the other children's balloon animals. We are finally escorted to a booth by a waiter wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses and a name tag that says spaz. Charisse and I flip open our menus and try to find something we want to eat amidst the Cheddar Fries and the meatloaf. Alba just chants the word milkshake over and over. When Spaz reappears Alba has a sudden attack of shyness and has to be coaxed into telling him that she would like a peanut butter milkshake (and a small order of fries, because, I tell her, it's too decadent to eat nothing but a milkshake for lunch). Charisse orders macaroni and cheese and I order a blt. Once Spaz leaves Charisse sings, " Alba and Spaz, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G..." and Alba shuts her eyes and puts her hands over her ears, shaking her head and smiling. A waiter with a name tag that says buzz struts up and down the lunch counter doing karaoke to Bob Seger's I Love That Old Time Rock and Roll.

"I hate Bob Seger " Charisse says. "Do you think it took him more than thirty seconds to write that song?"

The milkshake arrives in a tall glass with a bendable straw and a metal shaker that contains the milkshake that couldn't fit into the glass. Alba stands up to drink it, stands on tiptoe to achieve the best possible angle for sucking down a peanut butter milkshake. Her balloon wiener dog hat keeps sliding down her forehead, interfering with her concentration. She looks up at me through her thick black eyelashes and pushes the balloon hat up so that it is clinging to her head by static electricity.

"When's Daddy coming home?" she asks. Charisse makes the sound that one makes when one has accidentally gotten Pepsi up one's nose and starts to cough and I pound her on the back until she makes hand gestures at me to stop so I stop.

"August 29th," I tell Alba, who goes back to slurping the dregs of her shake while Charisse looks at me reproachfully. Later, we're in the car, on Lake Shore Drive; I'm driving and Charisse is fiddling with the radio and Alba is sleeping in the back seat. I exit at Irving Park and Charisse says, "Doesn't Alba know that Henry is dead?"

"Of course she knows. She saw him" I remind Charisse.

"Well, why did you tell her he was coming home in August?"

"Because he is. He gave me the date himself."

"Oh." Even though my eyes are on the road I can feel Charisse staring at me. "Isn't that.. .kind of weird?" "Alba loves it." "For you, though?"

"I never see him." I try to keep my voice light, as though I am not tortured by the unfairness of this, as though I don't mourn my resentment when Alba tells me about her visits with Henry even as I drink up every detail. Why not me, Henry? I ask him silently as I pull into Charisse and Gomez's toy-littered driveway. Why only Alba? But as usual there's no answer to this. As usual, that's just how it is. Charisse kisses me and gets out of the car, walks sedately toward her front door, which magically swings open, revealing Gomez and Rosa. Rosa is jumping up and down and holding something out toward Charisse, who takes it from her and says something, and gives her a big hug. Gomez stares at me, and finally gives me a little wave. I wave back. He turns away. Charisse and Rosa have gone inside. The door closes. I sit there, in the driveway, Alba sleeping in the back seat. Crows are walking on the dandelion-infested lawn. Henry, where are you? I lean my head against the steering wheel. Help me. No one answers. After a minute I put the car in gear, back out of the driveway, and make my way toward our silent, waiting home.





Saturday, September 3, 1990 (Henry is 27)

Henry: Ingrid and I have lost the car and we are drunk. We are drunk and it is dark and we have walked up and down and back and around and no car. Fucking Lincoln Park. Fucking Lincoln Towing. Fuck. Ingrid is pissed off. She walks ahead of me, and her whole back, even the way her hips move, is pissed off. Somehow this is my fault. Fucking Park West nightclub. Why would anyone put a nightclub in wretched yuppieville Lincoln Park where you cannot leave your car for more than ten seconds without Lincoln Towing hauling it off to their lair to gloat over it—