Read Online Patricide by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online Page A

my father regarded me with bemused eyes.
Asking if I would please check to see if the guest room was “in decent shape”
for a guest?
    I would, of course. I did. Like a house servant—or
a slightly superannuated wife—I brought in a supply of fresh towels for the
adjoining bathroom. The guest room was drafty from ill-fitting windows but that
wasn’t my concern.
    Cameron had the graciousness to express
embarrassment. She saw me to the door, since Dad wasn’t inclined to rise to his
feet after the intense two-hour dinner.
    I would have slipped away with a muttered farewell,
but Cameron insisted upon shaking my hand, and thanking me—for what, I couldn’t
imagine.
    â€œI’m so happy to have met you, Lou-Lou!—as well as
your amazing father. So happy , you can’t imagine.”
    Yes. I could imagine.
    I left them, trembling with indignation. Driving to
the George Washington Bridge where once again wet rain was whipping into sleet,
and the pavement was slick and dangerous.
    â€œAccident. ‘Accident-prone.’ Who?”
    N EXT DAY when I telephoned my father, it was Cameron’s bright voice that greeted
me.
    â€œOh Lou-Lou—guess what! Your father has asked me to
be his assistant, and I’ve said ‘yes.’ I think that I can add my experience in
some way to the dissertation material—like, a journal as an appendix?”
    A memoir, most likely. Which you will write after the man’s death.
    D REAMS OF my father’s death.
    â€œIt was an accident. He didn’t
l-listen . . .”
    Quickly before the will is changed. Before the executrix is changed.
    Distracted by resentment and anxiety I made an
effort to be all the more friendly, helpful, and alert in my dean’s position. I
was sympathetic with everyone who complained to me, I even shook hands with
particular warmth. I stayed up until 2:00 A.M. answering e-mails including even e-mails from “concerned” parents. It was
reasonable—(well, it was wholly unreasonable)—to think that, if I was a good person , I would be rewarded and not punished by
Fate.
    *
    Once, I’d saved Roland Marks’s life.
    I’d been twenty years old. I was to be a junior at
Harvard, within a month.
    My father was staying with wealthy friends on
Martha’s Vineyard in late August. With his third wife, gorgeous/unstable Avril
Gatti. I was in a smaller guest house, that overlooked the water, when a girl in
a bikini drove into the driveway in a little red Ferrari convertible.
    She was sharp-beaked, like a hungry bird. Crimped
dyed-red hair as if she’d stuck her finger in an electric socket.
    â€œIs Roland Marks here? I have to see him.”
    â€œHe isn’t here. Is he expecting you?”
    â€œWhere is he? He’s here.”
    â€œI’m sorry. This is not Roland Marks’s house, and he is not here .”
    â€œI know whose house this is. And I know he is here .”
    Since the publication of Jealousy , and Roland Marks’s figure, in tennis whites, on the cover
of the New York Times Magazine, many people had tried to contact him. The
usual sorts of people, but now others as well. A more American-suburban spread, not primarily Jewish-background as before.
Dad laughed at the commotion but was beginning to become concerned.
    â€œPhilip is absolutely correct”—(Dad was referring
to his friend Philip Roth)—“people naively think they want to become
‘famous’—but it’s nothing like what you expect. Instead of having the luxury of
failure, which is being left alone, you’re fair game for every idiot.”
    Rudely the bikini-girl was staring at me, in my
shapeless Save-the-Whales T-shirt and drawstring sweat pants. Even my bare feet
looked pudgy and graceless.
    â€œAre you one of his daughters? Karin?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThe other, then—‘Lou-Lou.’ ”
    â€œLouise.”
    â€œ