The metal hooks of the wooden hangers made a faint scritching noise as Nate sorted
through his closet. Should he wear his Air Force uniform? Maybe just a suit . . .
He pulled one out, a black one, and sidestepped into the bathroom, holding it under his
chin to see how it looked.
He could never look into a mirror without immediately noticing his hair. It lay as neatly as it ever had, carefully trimmed and combed in a slight wave, but somewhere between 1968 and 1986 his light brown locks had bleached to pure white. Whether the nature of the journey had elicited the change or whether it was an example of the anecdotal "turning white from shock", Nate wasn't sure, but it made him feel like he was seeing a stranger in the mirror. A stranger with his face.
Sort of like Randy, actually. Nate sighed and folded the suit over his arm. Randy no longer had his eyes . . .
Stop that, he told himself. He called, anyway. He invited you to dinner. That's a start.
Maybe Randy was finally coming to terms with his father, with the fact that Nate was his father. Maybe they could finally get beyond the accusing glares and icy tones. Nate didn't want to think about it too much because the hope welled and pooled in the pit of his stomach, overwhelming and intense, and it hurt. But it was a good hurt. Saturday couldn't come soon enough.
In the end, he left his Air Force uniform in the closet and went with the suit. Nate was tired of the government's manipulations, of running off to play superhero for them and clean up whatever self-made mess the military had gotten entangled in this week; he wanted to disassociate himself from them for just one night.
Randy, predictably, wore his Air Force uniform. Captain Adam saw him, standing outside Luigi's, under the canopy over the entrance (it was raining), and he sighed.
"I'm not late, am I?" Nate asked with a smile as he drew near and closed his umbrella.
"No," Randy said shortly.
"Oh . . . good." (Nate already knew this, of course, having spent the past forty-five minutes staring intently at the dining room clock, waiting with nervous anticipation until he could leave.) He tried to think of something else to say but failed. Captain Adam held his umbrella upside-down, shaking sprays of water off it as he opened and closed it a few times. "Do you want to go inside?" he said at last, running out of umbrella to dry.
"Fine," Randy said, turning on his heel and marching to the doors. Nate trailed after him. Somehow it did not seem like the ideal start to the evening.
Nate had done a little research ahead of time and discovered that Luigi's, despite its homey name, was a "nice" restaurant, which meant that people fought hard for an opportunity to spend an evening there dressed in expensive, uncomfortable clothes as they ate expensive (though no doubt extremely tasty) food. Therefore, he was not surprised to find a dark-haired lady with the mysterious title of "hostess" leaning on a combination desk/podium.
"Do you have a reservation?" she asked with a smile.
"Yes," Randy confirmed. (Nate smiled proudly; Randy was so organized.)
"And what name should I look under?"
"Adam," Nate said helpfully at the same instant that Randy said, "Eiling."
There was a short, awkward pause.
"Eiling," Randy repeated firmly, not looking at his father.
The hostess checked a ledger filled with cramped handwriting. "Ah, yes. Table for two, non-smoking. John--"
A fair-haired young man stepped up, took two menus from the hostess, and smiled politely at them. "Right this way, please."
They followed him up through a maze of red-clothed tables and finally up a wide set of stairs to a balcony which overlooked the ground floor.
"Here you are," John said, gesturing towards a small circular table with two sets of silverware already laid out. "I'll be your server tonight. Would you like to start off with something to drink?"
"Iced tea," Randy said.
"Just water," said Nate.
John nodded and left, weaving through the tables on his way to fetch their beverages. Nate looked hopefully towards his son, hoping to strike up a conversation, but Randy had buried his nose in the menu. Nate sighed, then flipped his own menu open and looked over the choices.
Each entree was listed in a smooth, curving font, followed by a description of exactly what the dish consisted of (for those who were not familiar with Italian food.) Captain Adam's gaze traveled to the far right column and his light blue eyes widened at the prices.
Inflation, he hastily reminded himself. You're not in the 60s anymore. Oh my God, HOW much for spaghetti?? Apparentally Luigi's was even nicer than he'd thought. He scanned through the menu once or twice before settling on a simple ravioli dish which was, coincidentally, one of the least expensive items.
Folding his menu, he set it down and looked across the table at his son. He caught a brief glimpse of hard blue eyes staring at him before they ducked behind the open menu across the table.
He doesn't have my eyes anymore, Nate thought again, sadly. Eiling. He has Eiling's eyes.
John-the-server must have delivered the drinks, as well as a basket of fresh bread rolls (and a small plate of butter), while they had been occupied with the menus--Nate hadn't even noticed. He sipped from glass as the ice cubes clinked together, resting his chin on his hand.
After a few minutes, John dropped by the table again. "Are you ready to order, or do you need a few more minutes?" he smiled.
Nate glanced toward Randy, who still had his nose buried in the menu. "I think . . . I think we need a little more time."
"Okay, then. Let me get you a refill, sir." He grabbed Captain Adam's half-empty glass and swooped off.
Randy still hadn't put the menu down when the blond-haired server returned. As John hurried away to clear the dishes off a table that had just been abandoned by its diners, Nate looked at his son--well, at the top of his head, anyway--with discouragement. Surely he hadn't invited him here for this? If only they could talk, just talk . . .
Well, Randy obviously wasn't going to start the conversation, and that left the job to Nate. He picked up his water glass, then set it down again because it was making his hands sweaty. After a few deep breaths that almost led to complete sentences, he took the plunge.
"This is a really nice restaurant, Randy. I'm glad you knew about it." Luigi's seemed like a safe topic to start out on. "Really great service and the food is, um, I'm sure it will be great." It had better be great, considering the price. "And I'm--" Nate screwed up his courage. "I'm glad you invited me here. Really glad."
The blockading menu across from him didn't move, but he heard a low, angry mutter of "Margaret."
"Okay . . . I'm glad Margaret asked you to invite me here," Captain Adam amended, feeling a little hurt. There didn't seem to be anything else to say on the matter, so he gulped down some ice water and hoped that Randy would pick up the conversation. He didn't.
Nate helped himself to a roll and split it open with his knife. At last he broke the silence himself. "Funny to hear your sister called Margaret; we always called her Peggy. Me and Angela. She's grown into such a bright young woman. I wish I'd been here to see it."
No reply came, so he continued. "You know, I remember her last birthday. Her fourth birthday. She was so excited. The cake--I remember the cake. Angela made it shaped like a bunny--I'm not sure how, I think she baked two cakes in those circular pans and then used one for the body and cut one up for the ears and feet. Anyway, in the cookbook they had a picture of the finished product . . . but it had coconut frosting on it. White coconut frosting. Peggy was so worried that her cake would have coconut on it too. She kept reminding us all week that she didn't like it . . ." Nate smiled at the memory as he munched on his roll.
"Mmm," Randy said from behind his menu.
"And then the presents, of course. Angela and I scrimped and saved and got her this beautiful brand-new tricycle. Red. Peggy smiled when she tore off the wrapping paper . . . but when she finished opening her presents, she burst into tears . . . Apparently what she really wanted was a yo-yo. A yo-yo! I don't know why." Nate helped himself to another roll.
"So Angela was trying to calm her down and Goz and I were running around the house, trying to find a yo-yo--which could not be found for love nor money. Finally we went and bought one off little Billy Townson next door for $5.00. Man, that was one happy kid. Anyway, Goz grabbed a piece of crumpled wrapping paper off the living room floor and we snapped it around the darn thing with a rubberband and gave it to Peggy." He grinned, despite himself. "Her face just lit up. She carried it around for months before the dog chewed it up."
He looked across the table; all he could see was a display of various pasta dishes with an inch or two of wavy brown hair visible over the top. Nate sighed, "I don't suppose you remember that, though."
Silence, then: "It was translucent plastic. Electric blue. She nearly broke my damn nose with it."
"That's right! That's right . . . she used it more like a mace than a yo-yo. I remember, she smacked you right in the face with it, started your nose bleeding. So I took you inside and got you some ice and a band-aid--"
"A band-aid wouldn't do anything for a nosebleed," Randy said disdainfully.
"No," Nate replied, remembering. "But you insisted on it. You told me they were 'good for fixing all sorts of hurts' . . ."
"Have you decided, gentlemen?" John asked, pausing beside them.
"Um . . ." Nate looked across the table. "Randy?"
"The Cannelloni al Forno."
"And I'll have the cheese ravioli, please," Nate added, handing his menu over to the waiter. John nodded and left.
Silence fell over them again as they stared at each other across the linen-draped table, two pairs of light blue eyes.
Nervous and not sure what to do about it, Nate began talking again. Once he started, it was easier to continue than to stop.
He talked about Peggy. He talked about Goz. He talked about camping trips and tree forts and report cards and anything he could think of. And when he had exhausted his summers and parent-teacher conferences and Christmases, he talked about suddenly finding himself in 1986, disoriented and confused and cold. (His children knew about his timeleap through almost two decades, but not his quantum abilities or superhero antics.)
The food arrived while he was describing how shocked he had been to hear about the Watergate Scandal associated with that one president, Nixon, and how he could never see the current commander-in-chief, Ronald Reagan, without thinking of the movie he had seen a few years ago (to him it had been a few years ago) called The Killers, where Reagan had played a criminal mastermind, back when he was still an actor.
He talked about everything he could think of, (everything except Vietnam, which still woke him up screaming some nights) and when he finally ran out of things to say, he slumped back in his chair in exhaustion, staring at the rapidly cooling plate of cheese ravioli in front of him.
Randy considered him carefully as he stabbed up the little pasta rolls of his Cannelloni al Forno. At last he said, "Don't you ever get tired of living in the past, Captain Adam?"
The coolness in his voice stung Nate. "Why do you call me that?"
"What should I call you?" He didn't just have Eiling's eyes, but a bit, just a bit of Eiling's derisive tone as well. "'Nathaniel'?"
You used to call me 'Dad' . . . But he knew that Randy would push him away all the more if he suggested that, so he swallowed his hurt and said, "You could call me Nate. Lots of people called me Nate." Angela called me Nate.
"Nate." It was impossible to tell if Randy was mocking him or simply trying out the word. Captain Adam chose to believe the latter because he didn't think he could bear the former.
For a while they silently focused on their plates, poking at their respective pasta. At last Randy said, "Margaret asked me to take you out to dinner."
"Okay . . . I kind of gathered that . . ." Nate said hesitantly.
"She's out of town."
"I know; one of her college friends in Opal City needed her to be a bridesmaid, right?"
"Yes."
"She told me she'd be gone all week, doing--" Captain Adam paused; Peggy had simply said she would be "helping out with the wedding", which wasn't too specific. "--doing wedding things."
"Yes. She said . . . since she wasn't going to be in town . . ." Randy paused, caught in some internal struggle. At last he said, with obvious effort, "She asked me to take you to dinner and find out if you wanted anything. This weekend."
"If I wanted anything?" he replied, puzzled, then flared a little. "I'm not destitute, you know!" (In truth, although the Air Force paid for his rent, they had provided him with surprisingly little financial support; they kept their pet superhero on a short leash. But Nate had his pride!)
Randy stared at him as if he were crazy. "I . . . she didn't mean anything like that!"
"Then . . . what?"
"She wanted to know if you wanted anything with regards to . . . with regards to this Sunday." Randy dropped each word more angrily and reluctantly than the last.
"This Sunday?" Nate repeated stupidly.
"The fifteenth."
"Yes . . ." Nate looked at him, unsure.
"Of June."
"Okay . . ."
Randy slowly exhaled a slow, exasperated sigh. "She wanted me to find out," he practically spat, "what you want for Father's Day."
"Father's Day? Are you sure you don't mean Mother's Day?" Nate asked, saying the first thing that popped into his head in his confusion.
"Not unless there's something you haven't told us," Randy said drily. "Other than the fact that you're a--" He bit off his sentence, cutting himself off, and suddenly Nate realized that Randy hadn't called him a "traitor" all night. Peggy must have told her brother there'd be hell to pay if the word slipped out, as it was wont to do.
"Father's Day," Nate repeated, brightening a bit. It must have been added after he was pulled abruptly into the timestream. What a nice idea! Father's Day. Happiness welled. His daughter had made sure he wasn't forgotten on Father's Day. And his son. Sort of. Albeit with a little encouragement.
He raised his napkin and tried to wipe what knew had to be a goofy grin off his face. ("Real men stay in control; no one respects a man who wears his emotions like a cheap hat," his father had often said. (Nate never quite understood the part about the hat.)) "That's very considerate of y--of Peggy." Nate couldn't keep the warmth out of his voice, and didn't want to. "I don't know what to say--"
Randy muttered something indistinct and impatient as he dropped his silverware beside his now empty plate. "What do you want," he repeated, a little louder, "for Father's Day?"
Nate tilted his head in thought. He wanted to stop having to fly around pretending to be a superhero (especially since the government, to his embarrassment, wouldn't let him wear pants while he was doing so), but his children obviously couldn't help him with that. He wanted a better relationship with his son, but that apparently was not going to happen, at least not tonight. He wanted to do various nasty thing to General Eiling (nothing fatal--just mildly painful; well, okay, maybe a little bit more than mildly), but Randy probably wouldn't appreciate hostility towards his step-father. He wanted to spend more time with his daughter, but she had a life of her own. He wanted Angela.
The last thought struck him with a pang. Angela. But of course no one could bring back Angela.
He was just about to tell his son that there really wasn't anything he desired (nothing obtainable, at any rate), when something occurred to him. It was Peggy, or rather her college friend, that made him think of it. "Pictures."
"Pictures?" Randy cocked his head, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"I want my wedding pictures," Nate said firmly.
"Your wedding pictures," Randy repeated. This obviously was not what he had been expecting and he kept tossing wary little glances at Captain Adam as if he thought he were joking.
Nate returned his gaze, waiting. His wedding pictures. He wondered why he hadn't thought to get them back before. Nothing could ever replace Angela, least of all a bunch of photos, but at least he could remember her, laughing and vivacious, through those frozen moments of happiness. If only Randy would agree . . .
His son appeared to be in the midst of an internal debate. At last he said, "Well . . . pictures. They'll be at my dad's place."
"At my dad's place," Nate thought with a stab of jealousy. I'm your dad . . . Aloud, he said, "Do you think the General knows where they are?"
"Yeees," Randy said slowly. "But . . . he might be . . . reluctant . . . to let you have them . . ."
"But they're my pictures!" Nate's voice rose, his temper flaring a little. "Mine and Angela's! We hired the photographer! We picked out the album!"
"Yeah . . ." The inner struggle returned for a minute, then Randy finally said, "They are your wedding pictures. They're yours . . . you should have them. Okay. We've got a whole cupboard full of old photo albums at home--"
"At home," Nate thought with a touch of bitterness.
"--so they probably got stuck in there." He was silent for a few seconds, then said with a sort of stiff formality, "He's gone for the weekend, if you want to . . . you know . . . get them tonight."
Nate blinked, not having anticipated a personal invitation to raid General Eiling's house.
Then he smiled. "I'd like that. We can find them together."
"Together," Randy said. Distaste coated his voice.
But then, Nate reflected as he counted out the tip, he had to take his victories where he could.