The Return of Jonah Gray (3 page)

“Uh, this is Jody in reception. Your three o'clock appointment is here.”

“Oh. Sure, Jody. I'll be right there.”

I had to get it together. I took a deep breath and glanced at my watch. That made me smile and, at least briefly, forget the phone calls. It was three o'clock exactly. They were right on time.

I had predicted by the way they prepaid their bills that the Ritters would be punctual. I had a clear-cut image of them in my mind: Donald Ritter, the avuncular former radio-station manager, his stomach straining against the spongy weave of a golf shirt, his all-purpose, slip-on sneakers, and Miriam, who'd only started to work that year, half time at a children's clothing store. She would get her hair set every week, was a crossword fanatic and probably carried her knitting in a public-radio tote.

I didn't know if the image I had built would be accurate, of course. I was never sure before I got an auditee into my cubicle. But I enjoyed the puzzle immensely, as well as the interim between the moment I wasn't sure and seconds later, when I was. Imagine a life. Have you got it? I mean, have you really got it? Well then, let's raise the curtain and bring out Donald and Miriam.

I walked into our no-frills reception area and looked around. Three sets of folks were waiting. One guy, off the bat I knew he was way too slick. He wore a perfectly tailored suit and crocodile loafers. My folks, the Ritters, they were savers. They weren't wealthy, but I reckoned they'd been saving ten percent of Don's take-home for the past twenty years. The guy in the suit—he'd dropped some serious cash (or more likely, credit) on his threads.

And anyhow, the crocodile man had an oily, better-than-you-are air. Donald and Miriam were softer than that, more hamburgers and horseshoes. The year before, they had donated an old car to a children's hospital and hadn't even claimed full value.

The folks by the door were too young. I knew that the Ritters had recently moved into a senior-living community, and both members of a couple usually had to have passed fifty-five to buy into such a development. Call me a warehouse, but that was the obscure sort of rule I got paid to keep track of.

“Ritter,” I called out, looking directly at the couple I had pegged as Donald and Miriam.

They stood. Tote bag and slip-on sneakers. I loved being right.

“I'm Sasha Gardner,” I told them. “Would you follow me, please?”

They looked unhappy to see me. I got no joy from ruining their day, but you can't complete an audit without a face-to-face interview. It gives people a chance to explain themselves. Auditing might sound formulaic, but even I'd been surprised a few times. Sometimes, I would think I had someone pegged as an evader, and she'd arrive with a God's honest explanation about the terrible year she'd had (and that's why her numbers had gone all to hell). Other times, a taxpayer I thought I would surely let off would sit down and start lying through his teeth, even about the legit stuff. It didn't happen often, but it happened.

“Here we are, Mr. Ritter, Mrs. Ritter,” I said when we arrived at my cubicle.

“Call me Mitzi.” As she folded up the newspaper she'd been holding, I could have sworn I caught sight of a crossword.

“Mitzi, then,” I agreed. “Have a seat.”

I noticed her staring hard at me. “You're so young,” Mitzi Ritter finally said. She turned to her husband. “This girl can't be older than Molly.” She turned back to me. “You're not, are you?”

“Molly?” I asked.

“Our daughter,” Mitzi said. “You don't know that? They said you'd know everything about us.”

“They?”

“Our new neighbors got audited once,” Don Ritter said. “Everybody has an opinion.”

“I don't know everything,” I said. “But we don't mind the rumor if it keeps people honest.” I smiled at Don Ritter to try to put him at ease.

He didn't smile back.

I had assumed that the Ritters had kids by the size of their former house. “I take it Molly's not a dependent anymore,” I said.

“Oh no. She's been out of the house since, gosh how long has it been, Don?”

“Ten years,” Don said.

“Has it been that long?”

“She'll be twenty-eight come December.”

“Time sure flies,” Mitzi clucked, then turned to look at me. “How old are you?”

I saw Don Ritter roll his eyes.

“Is that rude?” Mitzi asked. “It's only because you look so young.”

“You think everyone looks young,” Don said.

“I'm thirty-one,” I told them.

“So young,” Mitzi said.

“So listen, Mr. and Mrs. Ritter. I mean, Mitzi. I imagine you weren't exactly thrilled to receive my notice of your audit.”

Mitzi looked at her husband, who frowned, sitting a little higher in his chair and pulling his golf shirt down over his belly. Mitzi tried a smile. “There was a bit of language. I won't repeat it here.”

“I know how you feel,” I said.

“Have you been audited, too?” she asked, eyes wide. “They do that?”

“Actually, no. Yes, they do audit auditors. I haven't been tagged yet though.”

“Then you don't know what it's like,” Don said.

“Well, my father's a certified public accountant, and my mother is a busybody. I kind of view my childhood as a series of unwelcome investigations.”

“I suppose it could have been worse,” Don Ritter said. “At least we've still got our health.”

“That's a blessing,” Mitzi agreed. “Can't take that for granted.”

“No, you can't,” I said. Indeed, it was a subject I could have spoken about at length. Deep down, I knew it was the reason behind my current distraction. But other audits were waiting, piled high upon my table. I smiled at the Ritters. “Let's get started, shall we?”

THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR, I COULD HEAR MY
phone ringing. I was just getting home, jacket and book in one hand and mail tucked under my arm, digging through my purse to find my keys. I hated that. A ringing phone and my response was practically Pavlovian. My heartbeat would quicken, and I'd bolt into over-drive, rushing, trying to shove my key in the lock, tripping over my purse, skittering across the room, and what were the chances it would actually be someone I wanted to talk to? Nine times out of ten, my desperate lunge got me to the phone in time for a sales call. Or, as on that day, my mother. And I'd been in such a fine mood leaving work.

“You sound like you're out of breath,” she said. “You're not getting enough exercise, are you?”

“I just got home,” I told her, picking up my purse, my mail, my jacket, my accounting book. Disappointed for some reason. Who did I expect that elusive tenth caller to be? Who would be worth the lunge and the scattered mail and the bent book jacket? No one sprang to mind.

“You work too hard,” my mother said.

“It's not even six yet.”

“Long and hard aren't the same thing.” My mother had held a part-time job for about six months, twenty-six years earlier. Apparently, it had given her a lifetime of insight.

“Were you calling about something in particular?”

She sighed. “I was just thinking about you and Gene.”

I looked at my mail and frowned. “What about Gene?”

“I want you to be happy, sweetheart. Are you happy?”

I
had
been before I'd answered the phone, I thought. There had been no more blistering phone calls, and the Ritters' audit had gone well. In my analysis, I'd discovered that they hadn't taken the full deduction on the appreciation of their former house (at issue was an upgraded bathroom), so I had sent them away with a refund. They were so surprised and relieved that they had invited me to a barbecue at their house that coming Labor Day. Of course, I wouldn't go. Auditors never got involved with current or past auditees, not outside the office. It was important to remain impartial.

Still, it was nice to be asked and even nicer to feel as though I'd performed a public good rather than a necessary evil. Don't get me wrong—auditing is about fairness. I mean, I pay my taxes. And people living in this country and driving on its roads and breathing its air, well, why should some folks foot the bill while others sneak off? But this audit had been different. I had actually made the Ritters' lives
easier.
I liked the feeling that left me with—a sense of pride and satisfaction that drained dry as I spoke to my mother.

“Sure I'm happy,” I told my mom. “As much as anybody else.” That I'd been off at work of late wasn't something I would ever admit to her. She would have leaped at an opening to tell me that I was in the wrong profession.

“I don't believe you,” she said. “What's up with you and Gene? I want to know, but you don't have to tell me.”

I was long since sorry that my key hadn't slipped away from my fingers in the bottom of my bag, at least for a few more seconds. Couldn't I have hit another red light on the way home? My mother was an expert at the “I'm not overstepping, I'm just interested” arm-twist.

“Nothing's up with me and Gene.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“It means we're not dating anymore. Like I told you.”

“It was your job, wasn't it? That job is always interfering with your love life.”

“You're the one who's always interfering with my love life,” I reminded her. “Gene had no problem with my job.”

“And I don't have to tell you how unusual
that
is. You don't toss a guy like that out with your dirty dishwater.” An image of my ex-boyfriend, shrunken down and bathing in my sink flashed into my mind. It was not appealing. “And you two have so much in common,” my mother went on.

“We do?” That got my attention. She may have been the first person to say that about me and Gene. Most of my friends had chalked us up to a case of opposites attracting. Martina's standing line was “He's milk toast to me, but whatever makes you happy.”

“You both work for the government,” my mother pointed out.

“And? I have as much in common with the first lady.”

“You're not saying—”

I cut her off. “No, not a lesbian, Mom.”

“Because that would be fine,” she went on.

“Gene and I broke up last month,” I reminded her.

“You never said
why.
”

“It wasn't because I'm not into guys. I just wasn't into him. He just—he never noticed anything. He only saw what was right in front of him. He never saw
me.
”

My mother sighed. She sounded as if she was settling in. “Marriages are work,” she said after a time. “But they're worth it.”

Mom often used her marriage to my father as the example on which all unions should be based. She tended to gloss over her threats to leave, their trial separation years before, and the difficult times before my brother Blake was born.

“Gene and I only dated for six months. We weren't married.” I don't know why I felt obligated to point that out. In some recess of her mind, she must have known it.

“I'm just saying that no one's perfect,” she said. “You're not perfect. Your father certainly isn't perfect. Even
I'm
not perfect.” She didn't sound convinced about that last part.

“Thanks for the pep talk. Big help.”

“Are you sure it wasn't because of your job?”

Neither of my parents was happy that I worked for the IRS, and they'd never made any effort to conceal their feelings. Indeed, I had wondered a few times before whether my longevity at the Service stemmed from the fact that I liked the job and was good at it, or because I was determined to prove my parents wrong. I had expected the negative reaction from my father who, as an accountant, took an adversarial view of the institution. But I had always expected my mother to be more supportive—if only because of the social promise held out by the auditing group's lopsided male-to-female ratio.

Plus, she'd always been a numbers person. Even before I was learning the same concepts in school, she would tutor me in math, using examples from real life.

“Suppose you wanted to buy a hundred pairs of shoes,” I remembered her saying, “but the first store only has six in your size. What percent would you still need?”

“Why would I need a hundred pairs of shoes?” I had wondered. The absurdity of the idea was probably why I remembered the example years later.

“Oh princess, every girl eventually does.”

“I don't,” I had said.

I remember her sighing. “Let's just say that the price was right.”

The most meaningful numbers in my mother's life had long been those on price tags. When I was growing up, my mother would discuss returns nearly as frequently as my CPA father, but to her a return meant that something hadn't fit right when she got it home.

“How can you be so sure that it wasn't your job that drove him away?” she now asked.

“Because I was the one who broke up with him. Because nothing was easy with Gene,” I said.

“And you think your father was always a peach? Remember when he brought home that crazy boat?”

“The sailboat? The Catalina? Of course I do.”

“And none of us knew how to sail.”

“I learned,” I reminded her.

“You were the only one. I couldn't wait to be rid of that thing. You remember that boat?”

“I loved that boat.”

It was called a Catalina 22 because it was twenty-two feet long. I could still hear my father explaining that. It was a little sailboat, not suited for much more than day-tripping around the Bay. My father had bought it during the summer I was fourteen, coming home and announcing the purchase to my mother, my brother Kurt and me. My mother hadn't received the news well. She preferred to be the one who made our family's splashy, spontaneous purchases. She reminded us that she was prone to seasickness. Why, she could barely stomach lying on a float in the pool.

Only once had the four of us ventured out on the boat together, and after that, it was just my dad and me. I was always up for a sail. I liked the bluster of the wind, even when it was too biting for comfort. I liked the spray that kicked up as the boat galloped over wakes. I liked the nuanced adjustments we'd make as soon as the wind shifted direction.

But that following winter had been a rough one at home. That was the winter my mother took a breather from the rest of us, holing up for a week in the family condo in Tahoe. Maybe the Catalina was one of the things she took issue with. Maybe my father simply knew what it would take to bring her back home. I don't know when he sold it, only that the Catalina was gone by the time the following spring turned to summer. And when Blake was born, not long after, the subject of a replacement sailboat was effectively tabled.

I had always planned to buy one of my own. It was the reason I had saved my babysitting profits throughout high school and on into college. I imagined myself living out of the little cabin as I sailed up and down the west coast, stopping off at small, natural harbors to camp along the shoreline. I would rent a small apartment near the marina in San Rafael—or in the town of Tiburon if I was really lucky. And while other people spent their weekends pressed up against city crowds, I'd shove off and sail away.

Don't get me wrong. I know I wasn't the first person to land far afield of a childhood dream. Most people probably do. And the fact that I had never followed through on my plan wasn't a daily hang-up. I had a nice house in an appreciating neighborhood in Oakland, a secure government job, friends and family nearby. It was a fine life to be leading—even if it wasn't the one I'd imagined, back when I was saving for my own Catalina. Of course I wondered whether things would have turned out differently if I'd bought one, but how can you know that? How can you know where a few random turns might take you? A few random turns might have changed everything. But I hadn't taken a turn off my straightaway for a while by then.

“I should go,” I told my mother. Thinking of the Catalina always made me moody.

“We'll see you Saturday then?”

“Saturday?” I asked. “Oh, yeah. Of course.”

“You forgot Saturday?”

“No, I remember.”

“It's only our thirty-fifth anniversary. It would be nice to have our children present.”

“I said I remembered. I'll be there.”

“Come early if you want. You should spend more time with your father,” she said.

“He could spend more time with me,” I pointed out.

“Don't be like that. Not after what he's been through.”

I sank a little. She was right. My father had spent the first part of the year battling an aggressive form of lymphoma. Now, in August, he was officially in remission. I had a hunch that my father's illness had a lot to do with my own malaise. The timing didn't feel like a coincidence, but I hadn't wanted to think too hard about it. I just wanted my focus back.

“What about your brother?” my mother asked. “Do you know if he's coming? I haven't been able to reach him.”

“Kurt?”

“Well, I can track down Blake easily enough. By the way, don't forget to congratulate him when you see him next. He's over the moon about making drum major. I don't know if Kurt even knows about that yet.”

“I think he's been focused on the move and the new job.”

“So focused he couldn't manage an RSVP to his parents' party? Martina managed an RSVP. What sort of children have I raised?”

“Speaking of Martina, I really have to go. I'm meeting her in an hour.” It was true, but it was also a good excuse.

“How is that lovely girl?” Predictably, my mother softened. Martina wore skirts and dresses. Martina got manicures and waxed her brows. Martina followed fashion trends and kept old copies of
Vogue
and
Glamour
around for reference. Depending on her mood, my mother referred to my look as “messy,” “tomboy,” or “oblivious.” She was always happy to hear that Martina and I were still friends.

“Martina knows that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” my mother was always reminding me. Maybe that was true, but who wanted to spend her life with a collection of flies?