Talk Talk by T. C. Boyle

Author:T. C. Boyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2006-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

The coffee was still warm in the pit of his stomach when he lifted Madison out of her bed and carried her down to the car. She’d folded herself up in the fetal position, her thumb in her mouth, hair fallen across her face in a silken swirl, and he took the blankets and bedding with her, one big bundle, the warmth rising from the furnace of her, her pupils roaming beneath the lids in dreamtime, and how could he not think of Sukie, of his own daughter, back in Peterskill and as remote from him as an alien on another planet? As he laid Madison across the backseat and folded the blankets over her bare feet, he had a fleeting picture of the two of them together, the two girls, at the park—at Depew Park, in Peterskill—running hand in hand through the dandelions and the long amber grass, white legs flashing in concert.

It was a mistake to go back to Peterskill, he knew it—he’d known it all along. But it sang to him in his blood—it was what he knew—and his daughter was there. And Sandman. There was a house in Garrison, up in the woods and with a view of the Hudson, late nineteenth century, stone, with hand-hewn beams, remodeled in what Sandman called the prevailing bourgeois fashion and dernier cri of consumer convenience, and it was his for the taking, fifty-five hundred a month with an option to buy, Sandman contributing the deposit and talking up the owners, who were retiring to Florida but not yet entirely sure they wanted to give up the house for good, the credit check done and the papers just waiting there for Bridger Martin to blow into town and affix his signature. That was all to the good, and after vagabonding around the country on a nice extended vacation, it would be a relief to get there and start over—the schools were good and Natalia could shop till she dropped in Manhattan. He wouldn’t want to hit any of the old haunts, though, wouldn’t want to run into anybody, even his mother—especially her. Or Gina. It wouldn’t do to have people calling him Peck, not anymore. But Garrison was the next town up the line and he figured he’d be spending most of his time in the City, anyway, and with Sukie it was just a matter of hooking back up with the lawyer and getting those Sunday visits quietly arranged again. He was just Dad to her, not Peck or Dana or Frank or Bridger, just Dad, and no one the wiser. Or maybe that was a dream. Maybe the cops would be waiting for him at McDonald’s, because why wouldn’t Gina sell him out, why wouldn’t her mother?

“You are ready?” Natalia slid into the seat beside him. She was wearing a pink visor with a designer logo that had probably cost fifty bucks, fifty bucks at least. When she saw he was looking at it, she said, “For travel. For the sun.

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