I Will Be Complete Read online

  “I do,” I said brightly. “It’s on the spinner rack.”

  I had a spinner rack, one of those displays from drugstores with “Hey Kids, Comics!” on a panel at the top.

  “Whoa. You do have comics,” the guy said.

  “It’s terrible for condition. You can read whatever you want, but be careful taking them out.”

  “Cool! Thanks.” When he looked over the comic book covers, his face fell. “What happened to Captain America?”

  “I know, he looks dead. The government let him down, so Cap stopped wearing his old costume and he’s Nomad now.”

  There was an especially loud burst of laughter from the party, through the closed door. He tossed up a dismissive hand as if apologizing for all things adult. “I’m in the, I’m in the, you know, the group.”

  “Group?”

  “The Manhattan Transfer.”

  “Oh. Are you going to sing?”

  “I hope not. Is the Hulk still Bob Banner?”

  I corrected him: Bruce Banner, and then filled him in on the latest. Glenn Talbot, the Hulk’s rival for Betty Ross, was replaced by a Russian spy. He found a seat at my desk, under my task lamp. He checked his fingers for dirt before he started reading. “I’ll turn off the light when I go,” he said.

  I got back into bed. I thought of questions to ask him, but he seemed to like the silence. This was a type of adult I met more often than you’d think—kind enough to wipe his hands before looking at my comics. It felt good to know there were adults who could be at the party who didn’t want to be at the party.

  When I woke up later, he was gone, my comics were in a neat, squared-off stack, and the task lamp was off.

  The next morning I found a sandwich my mother had made for me on the counter, in a brown bag, with a can of soda. This meant she’d made it before going to bed, and she was still asleep. I went off to school.

  When I came back that afternoon, she was sitting in the living room, weeping. She held a crumpled-up Kleenex in her fist. The telephone was at her feet.

  I asked her what was wrong, and, between sobs, she answered. Her man from last night, Georgio, had just been arrested. He’d been trying to pawn her jewelry.

  I put my arms around her shoulders. But I was awkward. I didn’t know if I should say anything.

  She pulled away. She looked at me with watering eyes. “He could have just asked me for the money, damnit. I can’t believe he was so intimidated by me having nice things that he couldn’t even ask. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”

  Then she stood, got her purse and her keys together, reapplied her lipstick, and walked to the car, alone. She drove to the police station and bailed him out.

  * * *

  * * *

  —

  Peter lectured Mom. Didn’t she understand there were men who meant her harm? He knew she wanted to believe the best of people, but not everyone deserved that. My mother reacted by turning polite. Still, he wouldn’t let it alone, digging at a scab he should have let heal. Which makes sense, because he had trouble believing she would be so naive. Also he was protecting his territory.

  Georgio said he loved my mother. Lots of men said that to her. She was lovable, but also it was an era where “I love you” was as common as “Hello.” It felt good to say and to hear and it cost nothing. Peter said, “You know how you know they love you? They love you when they’re there.”

  He was saying this about himself. He was being “there” for my mother by lecturing her. He was also pointing out that my mother’s lovers tended to say “I love you” on the phone, in whispers, so that someone nearby wouldn’t hear them.

  My mother didn’t like any of this. There were phone calls. Across the apartment, I could hear her voice rising, and then the impact of receiver against cradle as she hung up on him. Her, flying across the house in her bathrobe, face red with anger. Goddamn him, she hissed. Trying to control me.

  It might have been because of that infraction or another, but one day Peter showed up at our door unannounced, stooped and straining with the gift of an enormous rubber plant. My mother recognized it as one of the two rubber plants that had stood in the sentries’ box in front of the Presidio. She refused to take it, and shut the door on him, and Peter yelled from the street, “History will show that I tried to make up with you and you turned me down!”

  She ran into him at Macy’s, where he pretended she was a clerk and said, “Miss, I’d like to see something in black lace panties.”

  She said to me, “It’s hard to stay mad at him.”

  We were back at his house soon enough. And Peter had a plan that he took his time unveiling. Like many of his plans, it would accomplish several things at once, but at first it seemed like it was about me, terrifyingly.

  We had missed his birthday, he said, the one where, very late, Joni Mitchell had come over and sung for the few guests, and later he and Sue and a newie had screwed blue until the sun had come up.

  I asked him if he really knew Joni Mitchell, as his star had diminished in our house so much I felt like challenging him.

  “Didn’t I say I knew her? Didn’t I say that?”

  “You say a lot of things.”

  “You’re doing me a disservice, you’re calling me a liar and that’s uncalled for. Stand up. Get the fuck up, come on.”

  My mother was already objecting to whatever he was about to say. Peter put his hands on my shoulders.

  “Kid, your mom just went through a bad situation with a man who was not straight with her. I want her to know there are father figures who you can look up to. I also think it’s time to launch you in this social world as a decent young man.” Eye contact with my mom for a moment, then back to me. “So listen. This is about trust. If I tell you something, it’s true. I do not lie to you. I’m not two-faced, and I don’t lie. If I say that in three hours you’re going to have a date with a beautiful blond twelve-year-old, you will. If I say a big black man will come up to you on the street and hand you a deck of cards and the joker will come out of that deck and spit prune juice in your eye, it will happen. Do you trust me?”

  I didn’t follow the part about the prune juice and the deck of cards. Mostly I wanted to know what he meant about the twelve-year-old girl. Peter and Sue shared some kind of look.

  “Think he’s ready?”

  “Ready for what?” I asked.

  “Kid, how would you like a date with a beautiful blonde named Miriam this afternoon?” Then he was off on a roll. “I got laid the first time when I was thirteen. It was terrible. I had to stand in line. Summer camp, some girl on a mattress, and we stood in line.” He repeated the phrase “in line” a few times as if to emphasize the horror of it for him in particular. I’d like to think someone thought to ask about the girl, but I’m not sure. I was trying to understand what this had to do with me dating. He said, “I didn’t want it, I didn’t have to have it, and I hadn’t even been out on a date before. I should have gone out on a few sweetie dates before, gone through the sweaty palms thing. Just go out for coffee with this girl and don’t worry about it. Have a chance to be a gentleman before your hormones pressure you to make stupid decisions.”

  As he was talking, it was like his words got tinnier and more menacing, the buzzing of bees in my ears. It seemed like a terrible idea to me.

  My mother approved of it. Somehow this melted things between her and Peter—they had a project together that she saw the merits of. She said the phrase “sweaty palms” a few times as she and Sue talked over how they should prepare me. Peter ordered me to take a shower.

  I was soaping up when the bathroom door opened. “The first question is what color flowers you’re bringing her,” Sue yelled at me, her eyes averted.

  “Purple?”

  “I should have guessed purple,” Sue said.

  * * *

  —


  “Miriam is really pretty but don’t let that intimidate you,” Peter said while driving me down the hill to Cow Hollow. It was just him and me in the car. “Beautiful women never know they’re beautiful,” he said. “Only tell them how pretty they are when you’re ready to give them that power over you. Whoever needs the relationship less controls it. Let me see your nails.”

  “She’s going to notice if my nails are clean?”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  My mind was blank. I yawned a lot. We stopped at a flower stand, where Peter paid for a spray of purple flowers by rolling a twenty off his Star of David billfold. He explained to the flower girl, who was pretty but not pretty enough for him to hit on, that this was for my first date, and she was easily brought into the conspiracy, smiling at me while I forced what I hoped was an adult smile in return.

  Back in the car, Peter continued: “Now, this is the beginning of your dating history, kid. You gotta decide what kind of person you’re going to be—you come at this with wealth and privilege, and don’t be a schmuck about it. Be yourself, but also ask yourself what kind of man you want to be around women.”

  I didn’t understand.

  “Like are you going to be the kind of jerk who steals a woman’s jewelry?”

  That, I understood. As we pulled up to an apartment building on Octavia, Peter told me the plan. It was four o’clock. He would be back at six-thirty. He told me to take her around the corner to his morning hangout, Café Cantata. “They serve Cokes and desserts, that sort of stuff.” He handed me ten dollars. “That should cover it.”

  We paused outside the apartment door.

  “Two things,” he said. “First, women’s liberation is important, but always open a door for a lady. If you come to an open doorway, let her go through first. That’s not sexism, it’s respect. Got it? I said, ‘Got it’?”

  “Got it.”

  “Second, you’re my son.”

  “What?”

  “Fix your shirt. It’s tucked into your underwear.”

  Miriam’s mother opened the door. She was beautiful and blond and young, with a small, turned-up nose and warm brown eyes. She wore a tight peach-colored T-shirt and a peasant skirt and she smelled good. She was so attractive I was terrified of meeting Miriam. “Hello, Glen,” she said, making it sound like my name had several syllables. “Peter, your son is so handsome. Miriam is so excited to meet you. Are those flowers for her? Purple! She loves purple.”

  She was talking down to me. I never let that kind of thing stand. But I was having trouble containing my nervousness about the date alongside how I wanted to crush that singsong condescension, so I was just quiet and red, which made my rage look like sweetness to Miriam’s mom.

  “You look adorable,” she said. “She’ll be back in a second, she’s at the drugstore buying special lipstick for this afternoon.” She sang out, “This is so ex-ci-ting.”

  She brought us into the apartment, which was overheated and narrow, with shag carpet and a lot of brass fittings. “The big date! This is a thrill for me, too, Glen, my baby is eleven, but I’ve never even hired a sitter since the divorce. I’m always with her, and I get so overprotective. So I’m entrusting her to you, young man. Will you take care of her?”

  I knew how to answer that one. “Yes.”

  A key turned in the lock. Miriam was coming in.

  Her mother announced, “Here she is! Miriam, it’s Peter and his son, Glen. Come and meet Glen, Miriam.”

  Miriam smiled at us all. She was an inch taller than I was, with long black hair parted down the middle. Her face was unusually flat, with a pug of a nose, and she had a nice smile. “Hi, Glen,” she said with the same emphasis her mother had, and her eyes shifted from me to her mother and back. “And you’re right, Mother, he’s so handsome.” She smiled as if we were all people of the world here, and we all knew what a date meant.

  “I, flowers,” I said, my throat dry.

  “Purple!”

  Her mother bent down over us. “Okay, kids, the adults are leaving now. Are you ready to go on your big date?”

  “I’ve got to get my purse.”

  “We’ll be back later. You stay out of trouble with Mr. Charming’s son, okay?”

  She kissed Miriam on the nose. I tried to make eye contact with Peter one last time, but he was already talking to Miriam’s mother as they left. The door shut behind them. Miriam and I were alone in her apartment.

  “This is a nice place,” I said.

  “Really? I fucking hate it.” Miriam hunched over a bed in the living room and threw the covers back and forth until she found her purse. “Let’s go. But don’t slam the door or my fucking bitch of a landlady will scream her fucking head off.”

  I liked swearing, but I’d never loaded so much into one sentence. Suddenly, Peter’s instructions to me seemed prudish, but nonetheless I let Miriam through the door first, which left me holding the doorknob. I closed it, but it didn’t catch. She took the doorknob from me and slammed the door, good and hard. She looked up at the front of the building, as if at her landlady, and gave her building the finger.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  “Café Cantata.”

  “I know where that is. That’s a fucking expensive place. You and your dad are rich, aren’t you? You can admit it. My mother already told me.”

  “We aren’t that rich.”

  We were on Union Street now. I had no idea how to behave, and I was thankful Miriam talked. “You bought me purple flowers. The lipstick I got for our date? See? Purple. Mom says purple is immature but she’s immature so she should fucking know. Here’s my bank. I have fifty-three dollars in my savings account. You know what pisses me off? Adults who think kids don’t know anything.”

  “Yeah. Like adults who ask you, ‘How’s school?’ ”

  “Or like guys who make comments to you and think you don’t understand them. I mean, give me a fucking break, I’m only eleven.”

  I had been preparing to say something else but I didn’t. I wasn’t expecting her to say that, and it gave me an uncomfortable glimpse of a world I couldn’t take in. I tripped over something not actually that important. “Peter said you were twelve.”

  She lit up. “What else did he tell you about me?”

  He had said she was a beautiful blonde. I had a hunch repeating that would be bad. “He likes your mom.”

  “Oh,” she said, disappointed.

  Peter had suggested we sit at his regular table at the Café Cantata, so we could people watch, but it was taken. The waitress led us into a back room. I hadn’t known there was a back room. She gave us a food menu. I hadn’t known there was one of those, either.

  “Do you think those people know we’re on a date?” Miriam waved at the next table.

  I hadn’t thought about it. I was too self-conscious about my every word. I had to remember I was Peter’s son, for instance. We were in the geographic center of the San Francisco pickup world, and at tables all around us were mysterious social cues as men and women sized each other up using measurements as precise as the rules of cotillion. Miriam’s voice, its volume, her confronting the world with a big, brash stick, made me nervous. I was stiff, feeling like a banker in a British comedy meeting a life-embracing mod chick. Those bankers never ended well. I said, “Do you like movies?”

  “Yeah. Like horror movies?” she asked. “Does your dad let you see stuff like that?”

  My real dad did. Peter would have, too. “Yeah.” I was going to do what I did at Peter’s parties: act. I’d always been on dates. I’d breathe deep and feel relaxed in this, the best of all possible worlds. “And you know, Miriam,” I added, “I just saw a movie by a director named Ingmar Bergman.”

  “Really?”

  “She’s Swedish.”

  “Really. With, like, subtitles.”
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  “Lots of subtitles.”

  “You must be fucking smart.”

  “We’re all smart, Miriam. Me, Peter, you, your mom. The movie was about a woman who was depressed. Strangely, I walked out of the theater more glad to be alive.”

  She nodded. “Huh. Yeah. When actors feel bad in a movie or on TV, you feel like you aren’t in such shit yourself. That’s why I like Gilligan’s Island. Every week, they’re still stranded on that island. It makes me feel better about sleeping in the living room.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. There was a distance between where I slept and where she slept that I couldn’t gap just by sounding smart. “Well, at least you’re in San Francisco. There are a hundred million people who would give up their legs to trade places with you.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Who the fuck would want to sleep in the living room?”

  When the waitress came, Miriam opened up her menu. I hadn’t known it had an inside. I opened up mine and ran my eye down the entrées, which were arranged in ascending price, and my eye got to the bottom, the Seafood Special, just as she was saying, “I’ll have the Seafood Special.”

  The waitress wrote it down. It was twelve dollars. I had ten. “And you, sir?” She was young and pretty, and waiting on kids seemed to amuse rather than annoy her. My mind closed up. I couldn’t order anything. In fact, I couldn’t even afford Miriam’s meal.

  “Coke,” I whispered, but she couldn’t quite hear me. I’d been shocked into being a kid. But—if it were Peter, he would go out on a high note. “There’s a drink Peter orders all the time. It’s a coffee drink, and it sounds like a bullfighter.”

  The waitress laughed. “Do you mean a café au lait? For the young mister, a café au lait.” She wrote it down. But then, a small cloud in the sky, she looked at me. “You know someone named Peter who orders café au laits here?”

  “His father, Peter Charming,” Miriam said.

  The waitress evaluated me for a moment. “All right, then,” she said, and left.