It is so not what Peter expected that he emits a strange, phlegmy little snort-laugh.
Mizzy says, “And other things. I don’t mean to be flippant about it. But I … this’ll sound corny.”
“Go ahead.”
“Huh. As it turns out, I don’t really want to wear a robe and sit on some mountain halfway across the planet looking at rocks. But I also. I don’t want to just say, okay, that was my spiritual phase, now it’s time to apply to law school.”
The mystery of Mizzy: Where did the boy genius go? He had been, as a child, expected to be a neurosurgeon, or a great novelist. And now he’s considering (or, okay, refusing to consider) law school. Was the burden of his potential too much for him?
Peter says, “Would it be too horrible and embarrassing if I asked what you think you want to do?”
Mizzy frowns, but amusedly. “I think I’d like to be king of the underworld.”
“Hard job to get.”
“Don’t let me get all cryptic. I need to shape up a little. People have been telling me that for years, and I’m finally starting to believe them. I can’t really go to one more shrine in Japan. I can’t drive to Los Angeles just to see what happens along the way.”
“Rebecca thinks you think you’d like to do something in, um, the art world, is that right?”
Mizzy’s face colors with embarrassment. “Well, it seems to be the thing I care most about. I don’t know if I have anything, exactly, to offer.”
It’s a pose, isn’t it, all this boyish abashment? How could it not be? Mizzy, why do you refuse to summon up your gifts?
“Do you know what you want to do, exactly?” Peter says. “In the arts, I mean.”
That was a little Dad-like, wasn’t it?
Mizzy says, “Honestly?”
“Mm-hm.”
“I think I’d like to go back to school, and maybe become a curator.”
“That’s about the same odds as becoming king of the underworld.”
“But somebody has to do it, right?”
“Sure. It’s just. It’s a little like setting out to become a movie star.”
“And some people get to be movie stars.”
Here it is, then—the armature of hubris over which this skin of uncertainty is stretched. Then again, why should a smart, beautiful boy pursue modest ambitions?
“Sure they do,” Peter says.
“And, well. I’m sort of … Thank you for taking me in like this.”
“Egyptian” isn’t quite right for the Taylor face, is it? There’s too much pink-tinged Irish pallor about them, and too much strong Creole chin. El Greco? No, they’re not that gaunt or severe.
“We’re glad to have you.”
“I won’t stay long. I promise.”
“Stay as long as you need to,” Peter says. Which he does not exactly mean. What can he do, though? He’s a sucker for the whole damned family. Rose is selling real estate in California, Julie quit her practice to spend more time with her kids. Those are not terrible fates. Neither Rose nor Julie has come to a tragic end, but they are, both of them, living unexpectedly usual lives. And here, smelling of shampoo, entrusted to Peter’s care, is the last-born, the most ardently and wrenchingly loved; the object of the Taylors’ grandest hopes and darkest fears. The child who might still do something remarkable and might, still, be lost—to drugs, to his own unsettled mind, to the sorrow and uncertainty that seems always present, ready to drag down even the world’s most promising children.
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