Taking It by Michael Cadnum Page A

sidewalk.” Maureen prefers guys who are just as unformed as she is, baggy, worn-out clothes and vague habits, people who can sleep all day and then jump up and down with excitement because a team on television just scored.
    She stopped doing arabesques up the sidewalk, although she rolled her eyes at me like she was doing me a huge favor.
    â€œWhen you walk,” I said, “you shouldn’t let all your weight go down on one foot, and then take another step and let all your weight down on that foot. That’s not walking. That’s lumbering.”
    â€œAt least I don’t mince.”
    â€œYou walk like a cavewoman,” I said. “It’s embarrassing.”
    My jogging clothes were loose and comfortable. I just walked along, showing Maureen how to stay centered.
    My father was on the phone, pacing up and down in front of the aquarium. CNN was on with the sound off, someone getting out of a car, not talking, heading into a courthouse.
    Dad tossed the phone onto the sofa when he was done with it, and hitched at his pants, looking at me, and then looking up at the ceiling. He was wearing a summer-weight suit, butterscotch yellow. His shoes were London tan, and his tie was toast brown, everything more or less matching, colors that made him look tired.
    â€œWe have a week,” he said, staying where he was.
    â€œSix days,” I said. “They leave for Canada in forty-five minutes.”
    I love details. You can say you’d like to scream, or you can say you’d like to hit high C above the treble clef. Mother and Adler were on flight 709 out of SFO.
    He said, “Your mother’s very concerned. So am I.”
    â€œWhat are they going to do up there, feed bears? Mother doesn’t even like the beach because sand gets in her shoes.”
    â€œThey have a nice hotel up there, Lake Louise. Very comfortable, very pretty. Your mother and I went there when we’d been married maybe a year.” He didn’t want to talk about that. “You went jogging?”
    â€œSomething different,” I said.
    â€œI want you to do something with your time,” he said.
    I could almost feel sorry for him, a man women liked, having trouble talking to his own daughter. “Such as?”
    â€œSomething safe.”
    â€œSomething that won’t get your name in the news,” I said. I regretted saying it. He blinked and walked over to the aquarium.
    â€œWindsurfing,” I heard him say. “Riding lessons. Volunteer at Legal Aid.”
    I was surprised at what I said next. “Why does Adler like Mother, anyway? What does he see in her?”
    He was shaking food into the aquarium, holding a container like a pepper shaker, sprinkling Vitablend into the water. He gave me one of his best deadpan attorney looks. “Your mother’s a lovely woman,” he said.
    â€œDo I remind you of her? Is that why you can’t stand me?” I meant this breezily, but it came out too blunt.
    â€œYou have so much promise,” he said. There was something in his voice, a little rasp of feeling, that touched me.
    I wanted to ask him if he thought I really did resemble my mother. If I resembled her emotionally, I was in for years of domestic hurricane. I wanted to ask him what he thought of Adler, but I couldn’t bring myself to utter his name.
    I wanted to tell him there was no way I could live in the same house with my mother and Adler.
    I left my jogging clothes in a heap, took a shower, tried to read a book Maureen had liked, about a blind man coming home after a war, happiness and suffering, all colorful feelings, signs of intelligent life.
    That afternoon I had the tank filled at the Chevron on Solano Avenue, sitting in the full-service bay and asking the guy to please check the fluid levels and the tires. I was the best student in auto shop, not being afraid to look up at the gearbox from inside the auto bay, down underneath the car where bits of caked