The Golden State

The air feels fresh when we get outside, I mean really really fresh. It must be the proximity of the lake because we are as high as Altavista here but something feels a little cooler, a little more moist, than the plain where Altavista sits. Honey struggles to get out of my arms and I say “Do you want to ride on my shoulders” and carefully put her up there and hold on tight to her ankles. My blood feels loose and I wonder momentarily whether I should drive but I think why not it was only one and a half beers and still holding tight to her ankles I touch my nose with one finger then the other and walk in a straight line and it all seems in order. I get her into the car get Alice into the car and drive very slowly back to the motel seeing maybe three cars on the way. Honey is asleep before we get to the motel—I remember she had no big afternoon nap and instead stared at television while I snoozed beside her. She stirs when I get her out of the car seat and then puts her head back on my shoulder and goes back to sleep, a rare event.

“We can get an early start,” I say to Alice before we head into our rooms.

“Seven o’clock,” she says.

I keep the lights off and the door to the room open and find my way with the illumination from the motel hallway. I strip off Honey’s shoes and her socks and her pants and I leave her in the onesie underneath, none the worse for wear. I lay her gently on the pillow and cover her with the blanket and stare at her for a minute. I go over to the dense drape at the window and realize our room looks out at the bench which in turn looks out over the parking lot. I calculate that if I open the window it will take me about thirty seconds of negligent parent time to get from the room through the lobby and to the bench, from where I can smoke and look at all the e-mails and hear Honey if she cries out. So I open the window, collect the essentials, make sure I have the key, close the door gently behind me, and sprint down the hallway and out through the front door of the Wagon Wheel and confirm, from the window, that I can see my sleeping child through the gauzy second curtain. I move six feet to the right and light a cigarette and take the phone from the pocket. It’s still light out. I open Skype and press to call Engin. It rings and rings until the British woman is there. “The person you are trying to reach…”

I finish my cigarette and look at the e-mails. I hear a reedy sound through the window adjacent. “That’s poison, you know.” It is the voice of Alice, presumably talking about my cigarette.

“I know,” I say. “I’m quitting when we get back.” Her window slides shut.

I write to Hugo awkwardly with thumbs, the cigarette perched on the bench beside me. “Dear Hugo,” I say. “Once again, I am sorry for the delay. The key box is in the bottom drawer of the reception desk—Meredith at one point knew this; perhaps she’s forgotten. My grandmother has passed away; I am settling some things at her home and I will be back in the office next week.” I cc Meredith and Karen and send the message and hope that it will be good enough. I write to Meredith. “Dear Meredith, I have written to Hugo and cc’d you. I am so sorry for the trouble I have caused. For your exception you will need to have Karen write a letter from you to the Acting Vice Provost explaining why the extraordinary expenditure was necessary, and then he will need to sign off.” I feel like I’ve dispatched these two items well, but I can’t ignore the electronic evidence of all the things I’m really supposed to do. There is an e-mail from our friendly local Gülenist organization with which we have agreed to plan an interfaith Iftar dinner and from which Hugo is always encouraging me to “raise money” although their office is absolutely threadbare and the manager applies for every job the University posts which indicates it may not be a likely avenue for fundraising. There are the reminder e-mails from the federal entity that grants part of our funding reminding that it is one month until our quarterly compliance report is due, a task that takes approximately one month of agony to dispatch correctly. I try to remind myself that I have successfully dispatched them in the past many times and that nothing will stop me from doing so again. I smoke another cigarette and try to think calmly about my calendars and spreadsheets and efficiency tools back in the office but for some reason they fail to calm me and then I go back inside the motel and illuminate our room with the screen of the phone to set the alarm.