BIRTHDAY Thursday, June 15, 2006 (Clare is 35)

BIRTHDAY


Thursday, June 15, 2006 (Clare is 35)

CLARE: Tomorrow is Henry’s birthday. I’m in Vintage Vinyl, trying to find an album


he will love that he doesn’t already have. I was kind of counting on asking Vaughn,
the owner of the shop, for help, because Henry’s been coming here for years. But
there’s a high school kid behind the counter. He’s wearing a Seven Dead Arson T-
shirt and probably wasn’t even born when most of the stuff in the shop was being
recorded. I flip through the bins. Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, Supertramp, Matthew
Sweet. Phish, Pixies, Pogues, Pretenders. B-52’s, Kate Bush, Buzzcocks. Echo and
the Bunnymen. The Art of Noise. The Nails. The Clash, The Cramps, The Cure.
Television. I pause over an obscure Velvet Underground retread, trying to remember
if I’ve seen it lying around the house, but on closer scrutiny I realize it’s just a
mishmash of stuff Henry has on other albums. Dazzling Killmen, Dead Kennedys.
Vaughn comes in carrying a huge box, heaves it behind the counter, and goes back
out. He does this a few more times, and then he and the kid start to unpack the boxes,
piling LPs onto the counter, exclaiming over various things I’ve never heard of. I
walk over to Vaughn and mutely fan three LPs before him. “Hi, Clare,” he says,
grinning hugely. “How’s it going?”

“Hi, Vaughn. Tomorrow’s Henry’s birthday. Help.”

He eyeballs my selections. “He’s already got those two,” he says nodding at
Lilliput and the Breeders, “and that’s really awful,” indicating the Plasmatics. “Great

cover, though, huh?”

“Yeah. Do you have anything in that box he might like?”

“Nah, this is all fifties. Some old lady died. You might like this, I just got this
yesterday.” He pulls a Golden Palominos compilation out of the New Arrivals bin.
There’s a couple new things on it, so I take it. Suddenly Vaughn grins at me. “I’ve
got something really oddball for you—I’ve been saving it for Henry.” He steps
behind the counter and fishes around in the depths for a minute. “Here.” Vaughn
hands me an LP in a blank white jacket. I slide the record out and read the label:
“ Annette Lyn Robinson, Paris Opera, May 13, 1968, Lulu.” I look at Vaughn,
questioningly. “Yeah, not his usual thing, huh? It’s a bootleg of a concert; it doesn’t
officially exist. He asked me to keep an eye out for her stuff a while back, but it’s not
my usual thing, either, so I found it and then I kept forgetting to tell him. I listened to
it; it’s really nice. Good sound quality.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“You’re welcome. Hey, what’s the big deal?”

“She’s Henry’s mother.”

Vaughn raises his eyebrows and his forehead scrunches up comically. “No kidding?
Yeah...he looks like her. Huh, that’s interesting. You’d think he would have
mentioned it.”

“He doesn’t talk about her much. She died when he was little. In a car accident.”

“Oh. That’s right, I sort of remember that. Well, can I find anything else for you?”


“No, that’s it.” I pay Vaughn and leave, hugging the voice of Henry’s mother to
me as I walk down Davis Street in an ecstasy of anticipation.

Friday, June 16, 2006 (Henry is 43, Clare is 35)

HENRY: It’s my forty-third birthday. My eyes pop open at 6:46 a.m. even though I
have the day off from work, and I can’t get back to sleep. I look over at Clare and
she’s utterly abandoned to slumber, arms cast apart and hair fanned over her pillow
willy-nilly. She looks beautiful, even with creases from the pillowcase across her
cheeks. I get out of bed carefully, go to the kitchen, and start the coffee. In the
bathroom I run the water for a while, waiting for it to get hot. We should get a
plumber in here, but we never get around to it. Back in the kitchen I pour a cup of
coffee, carry it to the bathroom, and balance it on the sink. I lather my face, and start
to shave. Ordinarily, I am expert at shaving without actually looking at myself, but
today, in honor of my birthday, I take inventory.

My hair has gone almost white; there’s a bit of black left at the temples and my
eyebrows are still completely black. I’ve grown it out some, not as long as I used to
wear it before I met Clare, but not short, either. My skin is wind-roughened and there
are creases at the edges of my eyes and across my forehead and lines that run from
my nostrils to the corners of my mouth. My face is too thin. All of me is too thin. Not
Auschwitz thin, but not normal thin, either. Early stages of cancer thin, perhaps.
Heroin addict thin. I don’t want to think about it, so I continue shaving. I rinse off my
face, apply aftershave, step back, and survey the results.

At the library yesterday someone remembered that it’s my birthday and so Roberto,
Isabelle, Matt, Catherine, and Amelia gathered me up and took me to Beau Thai for
lunch. I know there’s been some talk at work about my health, about why I have
suddenly lost so much weight and the fact that I have recently aged rapidly. Everyone
was extra nice, the way people are to AIDS victims and chemotherapy patients. I
almost long for someone to just ask me, so I can lie to them and get it over with. But
instead we joked around and ate Pad Thai and Prik King, Cashew Chicken and Pad
Seeuw. Amelia gave me a pound of killer Colombian coffee beans. Catherine, Matt,
Roberto and Isabelle splurged and got me the Getty facsimile of the Mira
Calligraphiae Monumenta, which I have been lusting after in the Newberry bookstore
for ages. I looked up at them, heartstruck, and I realized that my co-workers think I
am dying. “You guys...” I said, and I couldn’t think how to go on, so I didn’t. It’s not
often that words fail me.

Clare gets up, Alba wakes up. We all get dressed, and pack the car. We’re going to
Brookfield Zoo with Gomez and Charisse and their kids. We spend the day ambling
around, looking at monkeys and flamingoes, polar bears and otters. Alba likes the big


cats best. Rosa holds Alba’s hand and tells her about dinosaurs. Gomez does a great
impression of a chimp, and Max and Joe rampage around, pretending to be elephants
and playing hand-held video games. Charisse and Clare and I stroll aimlessly, talking
about nothing, soaking in the sunlight. At four o’clock the kids are all tired and
cranky and we pack them back in the cars, promise to do it again soon, and go home.

The baby-sitter arrives promptly at seven. Clare bribes and threatens Alba to be
good, and we escape. We are dressed to the nines, at Clare’s insistence, and as we sail
south on Lake Shore Drive I realize that I don’t know where we’re going. “You’ll
see,” says Clare. “It’s not a surprise party, is it?” I ask apprehensively. “No,” she
assures me. Clare exits the Drive at Roosevelt and threads her way through Pilsen, a
Hispanic neighborhood just south of downtown. Groups of kids are playing in the
streets, and we weave around them and finally park near 20th and Racine. Clare leads
me to a run-down two-flat and rings the bell at the gate. We are buzzed in, and we
make our way through the trash-littered yard and up precarious stairs. Clare knocks
on one of the doors and it is opened by Lourdes, a friend of Clare’s from art school.
Lourdes smiles and beckons us inside, and as we step in I see that the apartment has
been transformed into a restaurant with only one table. Beautiful smells are wafting
around, and the table is laid with white damask, china, candles. A record player
stands on a heavy carved sideboard. In the living room are cages full of birds: parrots,
canaries, tiny lovebirds. Lourdes kisses my cheek and says, “Happy birthday, Henry,”
and a familiar voice says, “Yeah, happy birthday!” I stick my head into the kitchen
and there’s Nell. She’s stirring something in a saucepan and she doesn’t stop even
when I wrap my arms around her and lift her slightly off the ground. “Whooee!” she
says. “You been eatin‘ your Wheaties!” Clare hugs Nell and they smile at each other.
“He looks pretty surprised,” Nell says, and Clare just smiles even more broadly. “Go
on and sit down ” Nell commands. “Dinner is ready.”

We sit facing each other at the table. Lourdes brings small plates of exquisitely
arranged antipasti: transparent prociutto with pale yellow melon, mussels that are
mild and smoky, slender strips of carrot and beet that taste of fennel and olive oil. In
the candlelight Clare’s skin is warm and her eyes are shadowed. The pearls she’s
wearing delineate her collar bones and the pale smooth area above her breasts; they
rise and fall with her breath. Clare catches me staring at her and smiles and looks
away. I look down and realize that I have finished eating my mussels and am sitting
there holding a tiny fork in the air like an idiot. I put it down and Lourdes removes
our plates and brings the next course.

We eat Nell’s beautiful rare tuna, braised with a sauce of tomatoes, apples, and
basil. We eat small salads full of radicchio and orange peppers and we eat little brown
olives that remind me of a meal I ate with my mother in a hotel in Athens when I was
very young. We drink Sauvignon Blanc, toasting each other repeatedly. (“To olives!”
“To baby-sitters!” “To Nell!”) Nell emerges from the kitchen carrying a small flat


white cake that blazes with candles. Clare, Nell, and Lourdes sing “Happy Birthday”
to me. I make a wish and blow out the candles in one breath. “That means you’ll get
your wish,” says Nell, but mine is not a wish that can be granted. The birds talk to
each other in strange voices as we all eat cake and then Lourdes and Nell vanish back
into the kitchen. Clare says, “I got you a present. Close your eyes.” I close my eyes. I
hear Clare push her chair back from the table. She walks across the room. Then there
is the noise of a needle hitting vinyl...a hiss...violins...a pure soprano piercing like
sharp rain through the clamor of the orchestra...my mother’s voice, singing Lulu. I
open my eyes. Clare sits across the table from me, smiling. I stand up and pull her
from her chair, embrace her. “Amazing,” I say, and then I can’t continue so I kiss her.

Much later, after we have said goodbye to Nell and Lourdes with many teary
expressions of gratitude, after we have made our way home and paid the baby-sitter,
after we have made love in a daze of exhausted pleasure, we lie in bed on the verge of
sleep, and Clare says, “Was it a good birthday?”

“Perfect,” I say. “The best.”

“Do you ever wish you could stop time?” Clare asks. “I wouldn’t mind staying
here forever.”

“Mmm,” I say, rolling onto my stomach. As I slide into sleep Clare says, “I feel
like we’re at the top of a roller coaster,” but then I am asleep and I forget to ask her,
in the morning, what she means.