"Of course not, that's why we're going to get a nanny."
I shake my head.
"What? You don't approve of nannies now?"
"No, I'm not saying that. But you’ll need to connect with this baby, otherwise, you're just going to be like ..."
"Like who?" Lincoln leans over the table trying to intimidate me. I shouldn’t finish the sentence, but suddenly, I can't make myself stop.
"You know who,” I say, narrowing my eyes.
"You mean like our dad?"
"Of course, like our dad."
"I'm not going to be anything like him," Lincoln snaps.
He rushes to his feet, slamming his knee into the table. The glasses rattle, making a loud clinking sound that makes everyone in our vicinity turn to look at us.
I ask him to sit down, but he just throws his napkin on his food and walks away.
Our entrees haven't arrived yet and I hope that he hasn't left for good. A few moments later, I see Lincoln disappear into the bathroom.
21
Dante
I don't want to follow him, and I'm not intending on apologizing. Of course, I shouldn't tell him what kind of father he should be since I have no intentions of ever being one myself.
Surprisingly, given our mom's propensity to marry, Lincoln and I share the same asshole, who we call dad.
He's arrogant, self-important, spoiled, life of the party, and everyone loves him. New York society worships at his feet, and if he is invited to a dinner party, you know it's going to be a good one.
Our father is the famous Archibald Tanner, a playboy, a womanizer, part owner of Playboy magazine, and a critically renowned and lauded novelist.
Unlike Mom, he came from extreme poverty, grew up on a farm in Ohio, spent all of his youth reading books and studying, to make sure that he never stepped foot or had to work hard in his life again.
There was an article in Vanity Fair a few years back, which said that he lived many lifetimes in one, and that his adventures, and his novels, and his life were something to be admired. I don't know whether the writer of that article was a friend of his, or just an admiring, aspiring novelist with stars in his eyes.
But the article even made his years of drug and alcohol addiction sound like something glamorous and fun to experience. I was pissed and fuming with anger when I read that and saw the cover at all the newspaper stands at the airports.
The managing editor wanted nothing to do with it because he had a big falling out with Dad. Apparently, Archibald Tanner threw a fit after the editor cut out some parts of the article that he’d submitted, called him names, and got himself fired.
When the editor came into the office the following morning, he found little disposable cups filled with urine right outside his door.
As it turned out, Mom had more sway with the owners of the magazine than the editor because, I later found out, that she was the one who got that story about Archibald published in order to improve his image.
Of course, there was no proof that my father had anything to do with the cups, but he was seen in the building, and he had just gone on a loud, obnoxious, entitled rant, trying to get that editor fired.
These are the kinds of stories that never make it into the light of day because they're not glamorous and they're not fun. And no one wants to discuss the depths to which addiction will often lead you, and how little you will care, when you’re down there, about your reputation or anything as consequential.
None of this is, of course, an excuse, and I'm not excusing him at all. I'm just trying to offer different facets of his personality, and explain why Lincoln got so mad at me when I compared him at all to our father.
I knock on the stall door and tell him to open it.
"Go away."
"Look, I wasn't comparing you to him as a man, not at all. I shouldn't have said that,” I say, knowingly. “Okay. But you and I both know that he was a shitty father who worked all the time and eventually partied all the time."
"I don't party," Lincoln says.
He slams the stall door open so quickly that I practically jump out of the way.
"Do you know how many times the firm actually hired hookers to come to our floor and keep all of us entertained, so to speak? Just so that we're happy putting in a hundred hour weeks,” Lincoln demands to know. “Do you know what that's like to be the only guy there who says no?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s not about that. I’m not like that. I have my wife at home and I don't want to cheat on her. Do you know that they don't invite me out anymore? Do you know how much harder it is for me to make my career? You don't fucking know anything.”
He points his finger in my face. I can't remember the last time I've seen him this angry.
"So, don't tell me that I'll be anything like our father. He's the scum of the earth. He never gave a shit about either of us. We could have been the kids of his housekeeper for all he cared. In fact, he probably treated them a little nicer."
"Look, I'm sorry," I say, shaking my head, suddenly filled with regret and contempt for what I said. “I know you're a good man, and I know that you're a good husband. And I know that you love Marguerite. But I also know that, just like me, you have something to prove. Marguerite made you ineligible for the money in that trust.
“There's six million dollars and I know that the reason why you're working so hard right now is try to make as much money as possible to prove our mom, our grandfather, everyone wrong. You're trying to make that money for yourself, but you don't need to. You have a beautiful wife. She loves you. She has loved you for years. You're going to have this child. You don't want to miss out on time with them just because you're trying to prove something to a ghost.”
The rest of dinner is pretty uneventful. We chitchat about nothing in particular and don't talk about our father again.
I get into a cab after saying goodbye and promise to meet up with him this weekend for their baby announcement get-together. It's just going to be them, me, and our mom. I'm there as a buffer to keep her being cordial and nice.
I promise that I'll be there, and I hope that my presence will be enough, but I'm not sure.
When I sit down in the back of the cab, suddenly the quietness washes over me.
I give the driver the address and he drops me off in front of my building. I haven't been to this apartment in some time.
The last time I was in New York my client was near the private airport in the Hamptons, so I stayed in a hotel there. Walking back into this place I feel a little bit lost, and incredibly lonely.
On the outside, I like to pretend that I'm a man made of stone, steel, something indestructible.
But it's only because I'm trying to keep all the dysfunction of my family so tightly within myself and I'm about to explode.
There's glass everywhere. Mom had insisted that I get this condo because the building was just being built and it was going to be an architectural marvel, now it just feels like an aquarium if there were another building anywhere in sight.
There's only one real wall in the whole apartment and that's when you walk in, everything else is glass.