And yet, there were other priceless memories, memories that were neither first nor expected, but perfect in their spontaneous joy. Once, when I was a kid, my dad shook me awake in the middle of the night and brought me outside to watch a meteor shower. He’d laid a towel on the grass and as we stared up at the sky, watching trails of white racing across the sky, I sensed in the excited way he would point them out the love he felt for me, but so often had trouble expressing. I remembered the time that Marge and I stayed up all night laughing and giggling as we devoured an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies, the first night I really understood that she and I would always have each other. I thought back to the evening when my mom, after two glasses of wine, spoke about her own childhood in a way that allowed me to see her as the child she once was, someone I could have imagined as a friend.
Those moments have stayed with me forever, partly because of their simplicity, but also because they were revelatory. Nor were they ever quite repeated, and I can’t shake the thought that if I ever tried to replicate them, the original memories would slip through my fingers like sand, lessening the hold I have on them now.
On Monday morning Vivian was out the door at half past seven, carrying with her a duffel bag. “I want to squeeze in a workout if I can,” she said. “I feel like I’m getting softer by the minute.”
London and I followed a few minutes later, dressed in shorts and T-shirts. We were heading to the club for my daughter’s first tennis lesson, and when I saw men dressed in ties on the road beside me, I felt like I’d been kicked out of the only club where I’d ever wanted to be a member. Without work, I felt like I’d lost a major part of my identity, and if I didn’t turn it around, I was going to lose myself entirely.
Time for more cold calls.
As soon as I parked the car, London spotted some girls from the neighborhood and skipped toward them onto the court. I made my way to the bleachers with a pad of paper and typed the words plastic surgeons into the search engine of my phone. Like attorneys, they were an area that Peters avoided – he considered them prima donnas and cheapskates – but my thinking was that doctors had money and the intelligence to understand how advertising could benefit their practice. There were a number of them in the Charlotte area divided among various offices – a good sign – and I began experimenting with a few opening lines, hoping to find just the right combination of words to keep the office manager – or the doctor, if I got that lucky – on the phone long enough to get interested enough to set an appointment.
“Can you believe how damn hot it is already?” I heard beside me, in a sharp New Jersey accent. “I swear to God I’m going to melt.”
When I turned, I saw a man maybe a few years older than me, built like a block, with dark hair and bronzed skin. Above his suit, he wore aviator sunglasses with mirrored lenses.
“Are you talking to me?”
“Of course I’m talking to you. Aside from you and me, it’s like an estrogen convention out here. We’re the only two guys within a hundred yards of this place. I’m Joey the Bulldog Taglieri, by the way.” He scooted closer and held out his hand.
“Russell Green,” I said, shaking it. “Bulldog?”
“University of Georgia mascot, my alma mater, and I’ve got a big neck. The nickname stuck. Nice to meet you, Russ. And if I have a heart attack or stroke out here, do me a favor and call 911. Adrian should have warned me that there wouldn’t be a lick of shade out here.”
“Adrian?”
“My ex. Number three, by the way. She dropped this responsibility in my lap yesterday ’cause she knew it was important to me and God knows, she’s not in the favor-granting business these days. She knows I’m supposed to be in court at nine thirty, but does she care? Ask me if she cares? She doesn’t care. It’s not like she had to see her mother. Who cares if her mother’s in the hospital? She’s in the hospital every other week because she’s a hypochondriac. It’s not like the doctors ever find anything wrong with her. That woman’s probably going to live to be a hundred.” He gestured at my pad of paper. “You preparing your opening remarks?”
“Opening remarks?”
“What you say to the jury? You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? I think I’ve seen you at the courthouse.”
“No,” I said. “Wrong guy. I’m not a lawyer. I’m in advertising.”
“Yeah? What firm?”
“The Phoenix Agency,” I said. “It’s my own firm.”
“No kidding? The guys I use are a bunch of idiots if you ask me.”
My ears perked up. “What firm are you using?”
He mentioned the name and I recognized it as a national firm that specialized in attorney commercials, which meant that for the most part, commercials were pretty much cookie-cutter, with the same images and only slight variations to the script. Before I could dwell on it, he changed the subject.
“How long have you been a member of the country club?”
“Four years or so?”
“Do you like it? I just joined.”
“Considering I don’t golf, I do. The food’s good and the pool is a summer hangout. You can meet a lot of interesting people here.”
“I’m with you on the golf thing. Tried it for a year, threw out my back, and ended up giving the clubs to my brother. I joined for the tennis. I know I don’t look like it, but I’m not half bad. College scholarship, dreams of going pro, but my serve only had so much speed ’cause of my height. That’s the way it goes, I guess. So now, I figured I’d get my daughter started young so that when she’s a teenager, we’d have something to do together when she starts to hate me. She’s the one out there with the turquoise top, by the way. Dark hair, long legs. Which one is yours?”