How was it possible that she hadn’t changed? Would a quick glance in the mirror show that I was sixteen again too, tossed back in time for a monumental do-over?
If only. The resemblance, while real, was only that, a resemblance. For it wasn’t my erstwhile amour fou leaning against the Reception Desk with a bored expression and iPhone-glazed eyes, nor was it a daydream or some nerve-triggered memory loop. Because suddenly, from an unseen corner of the haunted house, or more accurately, from the long corridor marked Behavioral Health Unit, came the much-loathed figure of Alex Clyde, Amy’s first husband, now a cop, all-dressed-up in his spiffy, hard-ass blue uniform, service revolver included, and the young female at the desk, object of my almost Lolita-like daydream, looked up as Clyde approached and muttered the word, “Dad.”
It was Amy’s daughter Jill, now sixteen, a virtual doppelganger of her mother as I remembered her best; it was Jill who had pulled me into this momentary time warp, who looked so much like her mother that I wanted to shout, “Hey! That’s not fair!” to the God I didn’t quite believe in.
I looked for an escape hatch, eager to avoid a potential encounter with Clyde, but the only option was turning and hustling toward the exit. While good portions of my life had been spent in retreat, I’d run away from Alex Clyde enough times that I didn’t need to do it again. That Amy had married and had a child with the bastard gnawed at me like few things did. After the nightmare of Sarah’s disappearance and all that had followed, Uncle Dan had urged me to break things off, but instead Amy and I grew closer and, of course, more dysfunctional, our love and friendship stronger than ever but tainted with deep currents of anger. While Amy smothered hers with Peppermint Schnapps and Bailey’s Irish Crème, I channeled mine into an absurd surrealist play, the anger so hidden that even Frank Rich missed it. Still, the idea that I could ever not be with Amy remained unfathomable. We’d been paired since kindergarten, since forever. Yet after the success of my play, she started seeing other guys, never quite ending things, but never committing, either.
During high school, she’d hated Clyde, too, and yet she had married the bastard and stayed with him for almost four years. Watching Clyde standing there with the daughter that, in an alternative, better narrative would have been mine, made me burn.
Clyde’s radar must have been up. He spotted me immediately, breaking out his best shit-eating grin as he barked, “Holy shit—blast from the past,” swaggering down the hall with his hand outstretched, Amy’s daughter peeking up with a mortified grimace at the sound of her father’s bullhorn voice.
“How the hell are you, man?” Clyde said, his handshake all tight and testosterone. My knuckles cringed. “I thought you lived in California.”
“I do. There are these things called airplanes. They’re great.”
“Wiseass. You still writing for the movies? I keep expecting to see your name on the screen but never do.”
“I’ve got a project in development,” I said, although “in the trunk of a rental car” would have been more accurate.
Clyde looked me over, gauging who had held up better over the years. It wasn’t me. He tapped his holster, reminding himself he could shoot me should the need arise.
“I’m not surprised she called you. You always were her favorite lap dog. If I were you, man, I’d turn around and keep walking. She’s over the edge this time, keeps saying how she saw Ronan at the supermarket, Ronan outside her bedroom window, Ronan on the fucking moon. She knows that’s impossible.”
“Improbable, maybe.”
“Try im-fucking-possible.” He scratched his nose and grinned. “I guess you didn’t hear.”
When I failed to respond, he seemed to grow taller, as if his spine had developed a hard-on.
“He’s dead. Your old drama teacher hanged himself six years ago.”
He paused for a reaction, Officer Tough Guy waiting for the suspect to crack, but all I gave him was deadpan Buster Keaton from an old silent film reel; I’d taken my share of acting classes and had a few chops.
“He lived outside Chicago,” Clyde said. “He never taught again; I think he sold real estate. Now he’s in the ground somewhere, snack food for maggots.”
“Does Amy know?”
“She doesn’t believe me, thinks I’m lying just to shut her up, the crazy bitch.”
“You shouldn’t call her that. She’s the mother of your daughter.”
“My daughter’s a crazy bitch, too, ever since she hit puberty. The apple doesn’t fall far from the bush.”
Jill looked up from her phone, rolling her eyes.
“Apples grow on trees, not bushes,” I said.
“For those two, bush is more appropriate.” He chuckled and turned toward his daughter. “Jill, get over here.”
She slipped her phone into her back pocket and trudged toward us, her eyes looking everywhere except at Officer Daddy. Up close the differences between the girl and her mother sharpened; Jill’s nose was slightly bigger, her hair a shade lighter, her legs longer, her shoulders more pronounced than Amy’s, yet she still qualified for that weird phrase “spitting image,” and suddenly I felt like a kid again, shy and uneasy.
“This is your mother’s old boyfriend,” Clyde said. “In high school they were like Siamese twins.”
Her eyes brightened. “You’re Donatello Marcino?”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jill,” I said, “although we met once before, when you were three. You wouldn’t remember.”
“Your play …was amazing. I loved it,” she said.
It’d been a long time since I’d heard anyone say that. “You’ve seen it?”
“Twice! Last year Mom and I drove up to Vermont to this theater in Rutland. We stayed two nights …we saw the evening show and the matinee.”
“Your Mom never mentioned that.”
“You know that speech Andrea makes right before the chair reappears?” Andrea was the character inspired by her mother. “I memorized it. Do you want to hear it? I’m an actress.”
“No, we don’t want to hear it,” Clyde said. “And forget this actress crap. Get a
