“What’s ironic?” Cassie asks.
“The expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect,” Teo says. “See also: ‘A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.’ ”
“What?”
“It’s the definition of irony.”
Cassie hugs herself, her thin arms pale against her dark shirt. “Oh, ha. But that’s not what you were talking about.”
“You’re right,” I say. “But it’s none of your beeswax.”
“Jeez, Mom. Where do you get these expressions?”
“Your grandmother.”
“My mom said that, too,” Teo says. “So the question is, why aren’t the kids today using it?”
Cassie laughs and asks him if his mom’s still alive. He says that she is. She starts to poke around his equipment, asking questions. I’m glad to see that whether or not he’s aware of her interest, Teo treats Cassie appropriately, telling her how his camera works and then what the boom mic is for.
“Are Henry and I going to be in the documentary?”
“No,” I say quickly.
“Good. Hey, can Teo stay for dinner? I’m making my special spaghetti.” She lifts up her hair, a slippery, straight length I’ve never been able to get into any hairstyle since she was little, and loops a hair tie from her wrist around it so it stands up straight from the top of her head like a question mark. “Please, Mom?”
“You’re cooking?”
“I cook. You taught me enough times.”
“Well, in that case . . . Will you stay, Teo?”
“I’d love to.”
• • •
At dinner, my kids ask Teo all the questions I’ve wanted to without any prompting.
“How did you get into filmmaking?” Cassie says.
“I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid. I got a few small roles and realized sitting around, waiting for the action to start, was boring. It’s better to be in charge.”
“Why documentaries?” Henry says.
“The first job I got out of film school was on a documentary, and there was something about it, the stories I could uncover, how life was more complicated and surprising than anything you could make up. It grabbed hold of me.”
“Why are you making a documentary about my mom?”
“It’s not about her, exactly. Not only, anyway.”
“It’s about Triple Ten, right?” Cassie says. “Like, one year later and how everything’s changed but kind of stayed the same?”
“That’s a great way of putting it. I like to think of it as my love letter to Chicago and everything we went through that day. And your mom, and a few others, have been nice enough to agree to help me tell that story.”
“That’s cool.”
“Thank you. This dinner’s cool, too.”
Cassie flushes. She’s done an admirable job. She defrosted several portions of the lasagna I swore I’d never eat again, chopped them up, and heated them in a skillet, simmering it all in a can of crushed tomatoes and fresh basil she made into a chiffonade, wielding the knife expertly. She even created a passable Caesar salad and got Henry to make garlic toast, the one thing he knows how to reliably cook, despite the years of lessons I’ve given to both of them.
“Where did you grow up?” Henry asks.
“Chicago. My mother still lives in the same apartment in the Loop. But the Loop wasn’t the Loop back then. We were comfortable but not rich.”
“We’re rich,” Henry says.
“Henry! That is so embarrassing.” Cassie lifts the hem of the apron she’d found hanging in the pantry and covers her face. She always does that when she watches a TV show or a movie if a character does something that makes her uncomfortable. She lifts her shirt and shields her eyes, as if she could cover up their awkward behavior with a bit of cloth.
“Why?” Henry says. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Look at this house.”
Henry waves his hand around. We’re in the formal dining room, with its white wainscoting that goes up a third of the wall and the robin’s-egg-blue paint above it. The table’s a shiny mahogany, not an heirloom but made to look like one. The chairs are mahogany, too, and their seats match the paint and the rug on the floor with its variations on an oriental pattern it took us months to find.
The rest of the house is to the same standard; Tom and I spent enough of our lives making sure that was the case. We both contributed our time and money to the project. Neither of us had much when we started out other than our degrees, which were paid for by scholarships and odd jobs. We both worked hard to make something of ourselves, to have nice things. Tom building up his software company, me managing Knife & Fork, one of the more successful restaurants in the city, where I worked for fifteen years before it closed.
“It’s a nice house,” Teo says.
“We’re lucky to live here,” I say.
“Have you asked everything you wanted to, kids?”
Cassie giggles.
“This is so interesting to me,” I say.
“Oh?”
“Normally, I can’t get so much as a detail. He must like you guys.”
I’d tried to find out everything I could about Teo before agreeing to the documentary. His take, his intentions, the research he was doing. Teo was polite but evasive. “Trust me,” he’d said, and I decided to do so, which meant there were important things about Teo I didn’t know.
Was he a storyteller or a man looking for a story?
I was betting on the first, but I was preparing myself for the second.
6
RUNAROUND
KATE
Kate forced herself awake at six thirty as her alarm switched on to Mix 96. Today was the day. One more day, and she’d be past the worst of it. She had a plan for how to do that, even. Written down on a scrap of paper and then burned in the backyard in the outdoor fireplace. Get up.
