The Return of Jonah Gray (11 page)

As his salary and tenure at the
Journal
rose, his life seemed to grow busy. There were trade journals and conventions, entertainment expenses, expensive dinners out and trips abroad. I found a mention of him in
San Francisco Magazine,
described as “eligible.” I cursed text-only archives—again, there was no picture. The writer had grilled him about Bay area dating.

My father has been asking me why I haven't settled down. I mean, I'm thirty,
Jonah was been quoted as saying.
Of course, by the time my dad was thirty, he'd done a lot that I'd consider unadvisable.

So what type of women do you date?
the writer asked him. I got the feeling that she was personally interested.

Oh, I don't know. I like them smart and curious. I like someone who might be up for going sailing. I love to sail. I like women who are out in the world.

Is it hard,
the writer asked,
to find women who are as successful as you are?

You think I'm successful?
he said.
You do?

You don't?

What have I done, really?

An hour later, I came across the article that stuck with me. It wasn't a cleverly penned story about Silicon Valley. It wasn't trend analysis. It had been published by a small magazine that had since gone under. I could see in his tax return from two years back that he'd been paid fifty dollars for it. I wondered that you could put a price on such things. As a young boy, I didn't know my father. He lived across the country, which to a child of five is the same thing as living in Australia or up at the North Pole. He didn't visit. He didn't write. He didn't call. If there were pictures of him in our house—pictures that somehow hadn't been ripped or cut up—I never found them.

He was not a subject my mother would speak of. My aunts would make eyes and tsk-tsk their tongues when I asked, and send me back to my mother. At seven, when I first saw drawings by Escher, they left me with the same feeling. All those pathways that went nowhere. I couldn't figure out where the stairs began that would bring me to the rooms I wanted to visit. They were always across a courtyard or some other broad expanse.

It was an unknowable chasm. A vast space. The distance from the earth to the farthest moons of Neptune. At eight, I decided that I hated him, that I would never seek him out, even if he were dying and begging to hold my hand, just once. It was a scene I replayed when I couldn't sleep at night. He was sick with cancer. He was wasting away. He had a month to live and all he wanted in life was to see me, and I, I would turn away.

But instead, it was my mother who died. Unexpected. Un-planned. Just like I had been, nine years earlier. And after my aunts made all the arrangements, I traveled across the country, which, as it turns out, is much different than going to Australia or up to the North Pole. And I met him. Sometimes, you forgive because you choose to forgive. And sometimes, you forgive because there is no other choice.

The ringing of my phone pulled me away. I wiped my eyes and answered.

“Sasha Gardner,” I said.

“You sound stuffy. You're not getting sick are you?”

“Hi, Mom. I'm fine. How's Dad's ankle?”

“Healing. He's still wobblier than usual. We're going back to the hospital on Thursday to have it looked at and get a few tests done.”

“Tests for a sprained ankle? Like what?”

“It's nothing major,” she said. “Just some things the doctor suggested. What about you? Do you have an exciting week planned?”

“Not really,” I said, glancing again at the piece I'd just read. “But I'm making progress on an audit.”

“Anyone I know?” she asked.

“I doubt it. But he seems like a good guy.”

“Oh really,” she said. “How interesting.” I could hear her smiling.

“Mother, please.”

Once I was off the phone with her, I knew what I had to do. There was no more avoiding it. I needed another copy of his return. I was going to finish this audit. I was going to finish
something.
I took a breath and dialed, for the third time, the
Stockton Star.

“Jonah Gray,” he answered.

That voice. His voice.

“Hello?” he said.

“Uh, hi,” I managed to say. I cringed. I hadn't really expected him to answer. Why hadn't I prepared a script to read from?

“Yes, hi,” he said. I thought about his story of forgiveness. I tried to picture him as a little boy in Virginia. “Can I help you with something? Are you lost?” he asked.

I cast around my cubicle for something to hang on to. I needed a way in without giving him my name. Sasha Gardner was his vilified auditor. I didn't want to be her, not yet, at least. “Yes, my name is…” I glanced at the neatly labeled folders Jeff Hill had made for me. “Jeff…rine Hill,” I said.

“Jeffrine?” Jonah Gray asked, in that voice that was like a deep, clear lake. He sounded sort of amused, like his curiosity had been piqued. Or maybe I just wanted to imagine that.

“Yes. I'm calling from—”

“How do you spell that?”

“J-e-f-f-r-i-n-e,” I said. How did I know?

“That's an interesting name,” he said. “I don't think I've heard it before.”

“Jonah's an interesting name, too,” I said. “Sort of.”

“My mother had a thing for cetaceans,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Whales. My mother liked whales.”

His poor dead mother, I thought. “Ah,” I said. “And you?”

“Do I like whales?” he asked. “Well, yeah. I guess. They're so big and slow and ancient. And closely related to the hippo. Pretty much the way I feel after a rough night. I saw one once when I was out on the Bay. I think it was a migrating gray. I mean, I didn't see the whole whale, but the blowhole. It was still pretty cool.”

I was smiling by then. I liked that he seemed content to let the conversation wander. Clearly, he wasn't an efficiency-minded drone who immediately saw to his business and then hung up.

“Me, I like manatees,” I offered.

“I'm sorry, Jeffrine,” Jonah Gray said. “I think I interrupted you back there. I realize I don't know what you're calling about. Do I know you?”

“Uh, no,” I admitted. I was embarrassed by my manatee confession. What had I been thinking? Why would I tell anyone that? “I'm calling from the Internal Revenue Service,” I said.

I felt the cold begin to seep through the line in the pause that followed.

“Hello?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “I received a letter from a Ms. Gardner. Apparently she's auditing me. You know her?”

“Gardner?” I asked.

“Sasha Gardner. There can't be too many auditors with that name.”

“Yeah. She's, uh, she works in this office.”

“Should I be scared?” he asked. “Don't tell me—I got the worst one. It would be just my luck to get the worst one.”

“No,” I said, too quickly. “Sasha's fine. Actually, she's nice. And fair. And smart. You know, she's a person like anyone else. Just because she's an auditor doesn't mean she can't have nice, normal relationships.” As opposed to Jeffrine, I thought, wincing. Apparently Jeffrine was a manatee-loving misfit.

“I shouldn't have been so judgmental,” Jonah Gray said. “I try not to be. I guess her letter just arrived at the wrong time. But I trust you, Jeffrine. You've gotta trust a person who likes a sea-cow.”

I smiled. “So you did get her letter. That's good. Well, not for you, I guess.” Of course he'd received the letter. It was posted on his Web site. But Jeffrine might not know that, I reminded myself.

“No, not for me,” he agreed.

“At least we know the postal system is working!” I hoped that Cliff, in the adjoining cubicle, couldn't hear me sound like a simpleton.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, Jeffrine?” Jonah asked. “Are you just confirming that I received the notice? Because I received it. Did I ever.”

“Oh, right. No. Not exactly. Actually, I'm calling to request another copy of your tax return,” I said. “A photocopy would be fine.”

There was a pause and then, “Why?” he asked. There it was, his journalism background revealing itself. The ferreting. The curiosity.

“Just standard protocol,” I said. I hoped that sounded official. I had decided on that phrase over lunch.

“Can't you make a copy? You must have my return somewhere in your offices. Go ask the infamous Sasha Gardner.”

“Have you ever been audited before?” I asked, though I knew that he hadn't.

“No,” he said. He sighed. “This is going to be a real chore, isn't it? Everyone's been telling me what I'm in for. I guess I didn't realize it would begin so soon. Where should I send it?”

I was relieved. “You can send it to me. The same address that was on the letter you received. The Oakland district office.”

“And you said your last name was Hill?”

“On second thought, send it to my boss. Sasha—”

“Gardner. I know. So, does she live up to her name?” he asked.

“I'm not sure what you mean.”

“Oh, you know, when I hear Sasha, I think—”

“A Russian boy,” I cut in.

“Well, Russian, at least.”

“I don't think that's her background,” I said. “I once heard her mention that she was part gypsy.”

“And of course, when I hear Gardner, I think—”

“Gardening,” I finished. Based on my last name alone, everyone expected me to love the feel of dirt beneath my nails. I enjoyed the outdoors, and I had as much affection for trees and grass and other flora as the next person, but gardening to me had always seemed like a lot of effort for little reward. Of course, I wasn't going to tell Jonah that.

I heard him pause. “You know, that's a common misperception. Actually, the surname Gardner comes from a different root,” he said.

“It does?”

“Don't sound so surprised, Jeffrine,” he said. “There's no reason you should have known that.”

“Right,” I said.

“Most scholars think the surname Gardner comes from the Saxon for battle cry. I guess I wanted to know whether she was a fighter, a real warrior princess.”

“It's not from gardening?” I repeated. “How strange. I always assumed it was.” I wondered whether my father knew that.

“Like I said, it's a common misperception.”

“Huh.”

“So, is she?” he asked.

“A fighter? Not professionally. But she looks scrappy.”

He laughed. It was a wonderful sound. “I'll send a copy of my return out tomorrow morning.”

“Great. That's great. Thanks.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to ask what had happened in his life, what had happened when he went to live with the father he'd never known. I wanted to ask why he'd left everything behind, left Tiburon, the Catalina, the
Wall Street Journal.
I wanted to ask him so many things.

“No, that's it,” I said. I heard disappointment in my voice.

“I must say it's been an unexpected pleasure chatting with you, Jeffrine. Give a holler if you need anything else.”

TWO AFTERNOONS LATER, I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH
Martina, who'd been unable to make my parents' anniversary party. After two months of waiting, she had finally been assigned to a new account—something to do with beef jerky—and had spent the weekend at a brainstorming retreat. I took great pleasure in pointing out that forty-eight hours of thinking up new approaches to dried meat made my job look almost normal.

Martina and I were discussing where to meet for happy hour. The Escape Room was closed for fumigation, and Martina had suggested that we meet nearer to her work, at someplace called the Ball Bar.

“I've never been in, but one of my colleagues thinks it's a sports bar. She thinks this because of the name.”

“What do you think it refers to? Testes?” I asked this at the same moment I noticed Jeff Hill waiting at the entrance of my cubicle.

He waved.

I cringed. I covered the mouthpiece. “I'll be right with you,” I whispered.

“Take your time,” he said.

“Who are you talking to?” Martina asked.

I lowered my voice to barely audible. “New guy,” I said.

“I can't hear you,” she said. “Your mother is right. You don't enunciate.”

“Did you watch the
news
last night?” I asked. “Did you see the story about that
guy?
”

“Oh, there's someone there,” she said. “A news guy?”

“New,” I said.

“Oh, new guy. The new guy is right there. Am I right?” She sounded pleased with herself.

I looked up again. Jeff was leaning against the gray-beige supports that stood in for walls. He was tall enough to enjoy an uninterrupted view across the entire sea of cubicles. He gave me a little smile, then pulled a brochure off the top of my bookshelf.

“You got it,” I told Martina.

“Is he cute?”

I glanced at Jeff out of the corner of my eye, hoping that he wouldn't notice the once-over.

“Fine,” I said.

“Fine like okay, or fine like ‘damn, he's fine'?”

I looked again and considered the adjectives I might use for him. I felt certain that he'd catch on if I tried to work
obsessive
and
compulsive
into a sentence.

I covered the handset again. “Is it important?” I asked Jeff.

He shook his head. “Take your time,” he said.

“Somewhere in between,” I said to Martina.

“Is he standing right there?” she asked.

“Pretty much.”

By that point I'd grown self-conscious. I didn't think that Jeff was listening intently to everything I said, but the conversation was no longer private. He'd overheard things before.

“I got the address. I'll catch up with you there,” I told Martina.

“Ball Bar,” she said. “Not to be confused with the Sac Shack.” She was laughing at her joke as she hung up.

“Sorry about that,” I said to Jeff. “I was on the phone.”

“So I saw,” he said.

I waited for him to continue, but he didn't. I looked around and shrugged. “Did you need something in particular? Can I help you with something?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I was just on your floor, so I thought I'd drop by and say hello. I guess you're going out tonight?”

“Yeah. With a girlfriend of mine.”

“Is the Ball Bar a favorite of yours?”

“You know, I've never been,” I said.

“You'll have to tell me how it is.” He gave me a little wave and left.

 

Normally, I'd have been gone by five-thirty. But Martina didn't work government hours, so I dawdled, adding a little mascara and messing with my hair in the bathroom before returning to my cubicle for the rest of my things.

I could hear my phone ringing while I was still in the hallway, and I broke into a run to try to catch it in time. I fully expected it to be Martina, telling me that she was running late. I hated to sit at bars by myself, curled like a shrimp with my back to everyone else, waiting, fake smiling if I did make eye contact, bringing a book with me so that I'd have something to disappear into. A book to a bar? No wonder I'm still single, my mother would have said.

When I reached my cubicle, I lunged across my desk for the phone, knocking over a mug of pens and stack of Post-it pads.

“Sasha Gardner!” I said. It came out as a desperate almost yelp.

It wasn't Martina. In fact, the voice on the phone wasn't one I recognized.

“Why?” a man asked.

“Why?” I repeated. “Why what?”

“Why do this to the poor guy? He's been through so much, and now this.”

“You know, I'm not the worst thing that could happen to Mr. Gray,” I said. “I'm not some heartless—”

“You know how I met Jonah?” the man asked, cutting me off.

“How?” I settled into my chair.

“We were both in San Francisco. I was growing all these cacti. Now, those are succulents. They can't do with too much water.”

“I know what a cactus is,” I said.

“Well, it was raining like the dickens, and the building starts leaking all to hell, pouring down on my poor plants, only I was gone, see? I was out of town.”

“Okay.”

“So the water proceeds to leak through to the condo below. Turns out, that's where Jonah lived. He comes up to my place, figures out what's going on, that I'm out of town but those cacti are in there, and you know what he did? Do you know?”

“He cleaned up?”

“No, lady. He didn't just clean up. He spent all afternoon shuttling my plants into a dry room and turning on heat lamps. Even before he got his own place straightened out. And cacti, often they got these thorns.”

“I know what cacti are like,” I said. “Listen, I appreciate the story. I get that he's a good guy. But these audits are random. It's not personal.”

“See, that's where you're wrong,” the man said. “Everything you do in life is personal.”

 

“Don't worry about it,” Martina said. “Drink your beer.”

“They keep on calling,” I told her. “It's amazing how protective they are of him. I hate that they all think I'm the bad guy. I'm not the bad guy.”

“You work at the Internal Revenue Service,” Martina said. “Since when do you care what people think of you?”

“I don't know. Since now, I guess. I'm getting tired of it. I want to be out in the world.”

“So quit. Go out into the world.”

I froze. “Nah,” I finally managed to say.

“No?”

“What else would I do?”

Martina frowned. “Anything, Sasha. Be an accountant somewhere else. Or not. Do something totally unrelated.”

“Now doesn't seem like the best time.”

“You say that every time we have this conversation.”

“Have we had this conversation before?” I asked. I honestly couldn't remember.

Martina rolled her eyes and set her drink on the bar. “So tell me more about that new guy, the one who was in your office when I called.”

I thought of Jeff Hill and wondered what Martina would make of him. “He's nice. He collects bugs. He's pretty serious. Unlike my audit. Did I mention how I was sitting alone in my cubicle, reading this article he wrote and totally cracking up—”

“Is he cute?” Martina asked me.

“He's tall and thin,” I said.

“How on earth would you know that someone was thin from a tax return?” Martina asked. “God, don't tell me that you people are starting to ask for height and weight. As if the government didn't get personal enough.”

“I was talking about Jeff Hill,” I explained. “You'll recall that Jonah Gray lives in the geographically undesirable city of Stockton and I've never met him. I don't know if he's thin or tall.”

“You sure seem obsessed by this audit. Way more than usual. I think you like him. And hey, didn't I say I thought you'd be a good match? Can I get some credit here? Wait, are you guys secretly dating?” Now she was interested.

“How did you get all the way to dating? I've talked to the man on the phone once. I actually told him that I like manatees.”

Martina shook her head. “Why do you insist on making things so hard on yourself socially?”

“He started it with whales. And he's interesting. He had a great life that he up and walked away from.”

“Was it some scandal? Now
that
would be interesting.”

I shook my head. “I don't think so. He's a quality guy. I mean, I think he is. I'm pretty sure he is. I feel like we connect on some level.”

Martina's eyes went wide. “I was right. You do like him!”

“I don't even know him. It's crazy, right?”

“No, you like him. You never say that shit about connecting.”

It was true. I'd rarely been drawn to someone the way I found myself drawn to Jonah Gray. But why not? What was it—about Gene or any other guy—that hadn't drawn me in? Why was it so hard to find someone I felt at home with? I'd always believed that there was something less complacent about me, something that held out for more, if only I could find it. But when I heard Jeff Hill brag about memorizing Social Security number origins, I had begun to realize that maybe I was part of the problem.

Maybe I wasn't drop-dead gorgeous, but I was pretty enough to get hit on regularly and asked out by the smaller subset of guys who weren't repelled by my job. And anyway, there were plenty of average-looking people out there who had found someone willing to go the distance with them. Hell, the entire world was full of average-looking people—even actively unattractive people—who'd found someone to sleep beside and debate paint colors with and read the newspaper aloud to.

It's not like I couldn't find
someone,
I reminded myself. I'd found Gene (or rather, my mother had), and he'd been willing to read the newspaper with me on Sunday mornings. But he hadn't found
me.

“I know it sounds cheesy,” I said, “but I always find myself envying those couples that go around wearing matching track suits.”

“Painfully cheesy,” Martina agreed.

“But they're such a set. I've never felt like I've matched anyone to that extent.”

“There you go, assuming that togetherness like that is always positive. Those couples remind me of trees that have grown all tangled together. You know how, in the spring, that tree in my yard looks like it has two types of flowers?”

“I like that tree,” I said.

Martina rolled her eyes. “Well, it only looks like that because some moron planted two different trees way too close. Now they're all pressed up against each other and their roots are tangled. It's not healthy. For plants or people.”

“Maybe everything would have been easier if I'd just stuck with Gene,” I said. “I wouldn't be here, wondering whether I'm crazy and broken and destined to be alone.”

“We're back to Gene? Gene drove you crazy.”

“Maybe I just didn't give him enough time. Maybe I didn't give
us
enough time. Maybe we could have grown together and we'd be wearing matching track suits right now. Don't you ever wonder whether there was someone you would have done that with, but you broke up with him too soon?”

Martina frowned. “Me in a matching track suit? I don't think so.”