Patricide by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page B

ridiculous.
    Shining-blond Cameron cast her eyes downward in a
semblance of modesty. Indeed they were beautiful gray-green eyes, once she’d
removed her glasses.
    She was looming above my father dazzling and
willowy in the mauve wool suit, that had to be of very high quality, though
possibly purchased at a consignment shop; the brass buttons were just slightly
tarnished. She was slouch-shouldered as a too-tall teenaged girl might be, which
made her appear touching, vulnerable. In the instant in which my father turned
to Cameron I sensed how the exemplary daughter disappeared from his consciousness, as if a
portion of his brain had been severed.
    Of course, I was upset. I hadn’t expected
this—again. In the intervening week I’d tried to erase the arrogant young woman
from my memory.
    However, in my role as a college administrator I’d
long ago learned to disguise upset. Emotions were not permitted in one in
authority. In an unperturbed voice I asked my father—smilingly—what sort of food
he wanted for dinner; and my father gallantly asked Cameron what sort of food
did she want?—“There’s Chinese, Italian, Thai—but we had Thai last
week . . .”
    The way—gently crumpling, a catch in his throat— in
which my father enunciated “Cameron” was not reassuring.
    Bright-vivacious Cameron said, like any high school
girl aiming to be liked, “Please choose anything you want, Mr. Marks—I mean,
Roland. I’m not a fussy eater. I like all kinds of things.” It was the sweetly
subservient manner of one who understands that to manipulate others in serious
matters you should always acquiesce in small matters; you should give an
impression of pliancy .
    â€œExcept sushi—the thought of raw fish makes me feel
queasy.”
    Cameron shuddered, and laughed. Roland Marks
shuddered and laughed, too.
    Cynically I had to wonder if Cameron knew that,
many years ago, Roland Marks had gotten deathly sick after eating sushi at a
publisher’s banquet in Tokyo; since then, the mere thought of raw fish made him
feel queasy, too.
    I said, “I’ll order Chinese. I’ll specify—nothing
raw.”
    I left them and went into the kitchen. I must have
been upset, I collided with doorways, chairs, countertops. In the other room I
could hear their laughter, that was chilling to me.
    I’d interrupted a domestic scene—was that it?
Unbelievable.
    It must have been my father’s age. Everything had
to be accelerated, even as it was being repeated. And ever-younger women, to be
confused with not daughters but granddaughters .
    I bit my lower lip. This was unfair! Unjust.
    The deluded old man can’t fall in love so quickly—so soon again.
    It was a measure of my upset, I’d thought of my
father as an old man . In a normal state of mind I would never have
thought of Roland Marks in such a way.
    Several times during the past week I’d called my
father, spoken with him or left phone messages. I had not mentioned the young
Ph.D. candidate who’d been interviewing him nor had my father mentioned her to
me and so I’d felt justified in thinking that she might already be out of our
lives.
    As always I’d been a dutiful and devoted daughter.
Dad had very little idea of how hard I worked at Riverdale College and of how
much the college expected of me. For him, I’d made several telephone calls which
he hadn’t had time to make himself and I’d arranged for a furnace repairman to
drop by the house, since Dad was having trouble with the furnace. (Roland Marks
was helpless as a child living in an adult’s house: he had no idea how to keep
up with repairs, whom to call, how much to expect to pay; he just suspected all
the locals to be taking advantage of him.) The wooden steps at the rear of the
house, leading down to the beach, badly needed repair; at the end of the summer
I’d tied yellow tape across the