The Return of Jonah Gray Read online

  “I’m thirty-one,” I told them.

  “So young,” Mitzi said.

  “So listen, Mr. and Mrs. Ritter. I mean, Mitzi. I imagine you weren’t exactly thrilled to receive my notice of your audit.”

  Mitzi looked at her husband, who frowned, sitting a little higher in his chair and pulling his golf shirt down over his belly. Mitzi tried a smile. “There was a bit of language. I won’t repeat it here.”

  “I know how you feel,” I said.

  “Have you been audited, too?” she asked, eyes wide. “They do that?”

  “Actually, no. Yes, they do audit auditors. I haven’t been tagged yet though.”

  “Then you don’t know what it’s like,” Don said.

  “Well, my father’s a certified public accountant, and my mother is a busybody. I kind of view my childhood as a series of unwelcome investigations.”

  “I suppose it could have been worse,” Don Ritter said. “At least we’ve still got our health.”

  “That’s a blessing,” Mitzi agreed. “Can’t take that for granted.”

  “No, you can’t,” I said. Indeed, it was a subject I could have spoken about at length. Deep down, I knew it was the reason behind my current distraction. But other audits were waiting, piled high upon my table. I smiled at the Ritters. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

  Chapter Three

  THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR, I COULD HEAR MY phone ringing. I was just getting home, jacket and book in one hand and mail tucked under my arm, digging through my purse to find my keys. I hated that. A ringing phone and my response was practically Pavlovian. My heartbeat would quicken, and I’d bolt into over-drive, rushing, trying to shove my key in the lock, tripping over my purse, skittering across the room, and what were the chances it would actually be someone I wanted to talk to? Nine times out of ten, my desperate lunge got me to the phone in time for a sales call. Or, as on that day, my mother. And I’d been in such a fine mood leaving work.

  “You sound like you’re out of breath,” she said. “You’re not getting enough exercise, are you?”

  “I just got home,” I told her, picking up my purse, my mail, my jacket, my accounting book. Disappointed for some reason. Who did I expect that elusive tenth caller to be? Who would be worth the lunge and the scattered mail and the bent book jacket? No one sprang to mind.

  “You work too hard,” my mother said.

  “It’s not even six yet.”

  “Long and hard aren’t the same thing.” My mother had held a part-time job for about six months, twenty-six years earlier. Apparently, it had given her a lifetime of insight.

  “Were you calling about something in particular?”

  She sighed. “I was just thinking about you and Gene.”

  I looked at my mail and frowned. “What about Gene?”

  “I want you to be happy, sweetheart. Are you happy?”

  I had been before I’d answered the phone, I thought. There had been no more blistering phone calls, and the Ritters’ audit had gone well. In my analysis, I’d discovered that they hadn’t taken the full deduction on the appreciation of their former house (at issue was an upgraded bathroom), so I had sent them away with a refund. They were so surprised and relieved that they had invited me to a barbecue at their house that coming Labor Day. Of course, I wouldn’t go. Auditors never got involved with current or past auditees, not outside the office. It was important to remain impartial.

  Still, it was nice to be asked and even nicer to feel as though I’d performed a public good rather than a necessary evil. Don’t get me wrong—auditing is about fairness. I mean, I pay my taxes. And people living in this country and driving on its roads and breathing its air, well, why should some folks foot the bill while others sneak off? But this audit had been different. I had actually made the Ritters’ lives easier. I liked the feeling that left me with—a sense of pride and satisfaction that drained dry as I spoke to my mother.

  “Sure I’m happy,” I told my mom. “As much as anybody else.” That I’d been off at work of late wasn’t something I would ever admit to her. She would have leaped at an opening to tell me that I was in the wrong profession.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said. “What’s up with you and Gene? I want to know, but you don’t have to tell me.”

  I was long since sorry that my key hadn’t slipped away from my fingers in the bottom of my bag, at least for a few more seconds. Couldn’t I have hit another red light on the way home? My mother was an expert at the “I’m not overstepping, I’m just interested” arm-twist.

  “Nothing’s up with me and Gene.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

  “It means we’re not dating anymore. Like I told you.”

  “It was your job, wasn’t it? That job is always interfering with your love life.”

  “You’re the one who’s always interfering with my love life,” I reminded her. “Gene had no problem with my job.”

  “And I don’t have to tell you how unusual that is. You don’t toss a guy like that out with your dirty dishwater.” An image of my ex-boyfriend, shrunken down and bathing in my sink flashed into my mind. It was not appealing. “And you two have so much in common,” my mother went on.

  “We do?” That got my attention. She may have been the first person to say that about me and Gene. Most of my friends had chalked us up to a case of opposites attracting. Martina’s standing line was “He’s milk toast to me, but whatever makes you happy.”

  “You both work for the government,” my mother pointed out.

  “And? I have as much in common with the first lady.”

  “You’re not saying—”

  I cut her off. “No, not a lesbian, Mom.”

  “Because that would be fine,” she went on.

  “Gene and I broke up last month,” I reminded her.

  “You never said why.”

  “It wasn’t because I’m not into guys. I just wasn’t into him. He just—he never noticed anything. He only saw what was right in front of him. He never saw me.”

  My mother sighed. She sounded as if she was settling in. “Marriages are work,” she said after a time. “But they’re worth it.”

  Mom often used her marriage to my father as the example on which all unions should be based. She tended to gloss over her threats to leave, their trial separation years before, and the difficult times before my brother Blake was born.

  “Gene and I only dated for six months. We weren’t married.” I don’t know why I felt obligated to point that out. In some recess of her mind, she must have known it.

  “I’m just saying that no one’s perfect,” she said. “You’re not perfect. Your father certainly isn’t perfect. Even I’m not perfect.” She didn’t sound convinced about that last part.

  “Thanks for the pep talk. Big help.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t because of your job?”

  Neither of my parents was happy that I worked for the IRS, and they’d never made any effort to conceal their feelings. Indeed, I had wondered a few times before whether my longevity at the Service stemmed from the fact that I liked the job and was good at it, or because I was determined to prove my parents wrong. I had expected the negative reaction from my father who, as an accountant, took an adversarial view of the institution. But I had always expected my mother to be more supportive—if only because of the social promise held out by the auditing group’s lopsided male-to-female ratio.

  Plus, she’d always been a numbers person. Even before I was learning the same concepts in school, she would tutor me in math, using examples from real life.

  “Suppose you wanted to buy a hundred pairs of shoes,” I remembered her saying, “but the first store only has six in your size. What percent would you still need?”

  “Why would I need a hundred pairs of shoes?” I had wondered. The absurdity of the idea was probably why I remembered the example years later.

  “Oh princess, every girl eventually does.”


  “I don’t,” I had said.

  I remember her sighing. “Let’s just say that the price was right.”

  The most meaningful numbers in my mother’s life had long been those on price tags. When I was growing up, my mother would discuss returns nearly as frequently as my CPA father, but to her a return meant that something hadn’t fit right when she got it home.

  “How can you be so sure that it wasn’t your job that drove him away?” she now asked.

  “Because I was the one who broke up with him. Because nothing was easy with Gene,” I said.

  “And you think your father was always a peach? Remember when he brought home that crazy boat?”

  “The sailboat? The Catalina? Of course I do.”

  “And none of us knew how to sail.”

  “I learned,” I reminded her.

  “You were the only one. I couldn’t wait to be rid of that thing. You remember that boat?”

  “I loved that boat.”

  It was called a Catalina 22 because it was twenty-two feet long. I could still hear my father explaining that. It was a little sailboat, not suited for much more than day-tripping around the Bay. My father had bought it during the summer I was fourteen, coming home and announcing the purchase to my mother, my brother Kurt and me. My mother hadn’t received the news well. She preferred to be the one who made our family’s splashy, spontaneous purchases. She reminded us that she was prone to seasickness. Why, she could barely stomach lying on a float in the pool.

  Only once had the four of us ventured out on the boat together, and after that, it was just my dad and me. I was always up for a sail. I liked the bluster of the wind, even when it was too biting for comfort. I liked the spray that kicked up as the boat galloped over wakes. I liked the nuanced adjustments we’d make as soon as the wind shifted direction.

  But that following winter had been a rough one at home. That was the winter my mother took a breather from the rest of us, holing up for a week in the family condo in Tahoe. Maybe the Catalina was one of the things she took issue with. Maybe my father simply knew what it would take to bring her back home. I don’t know when he sold it, only that the Catalina was gone by the time the following spring turned to summer. And when Blake was born, not long after, the subject of a replacement sailboat was effectively tabled.

  I had always planned to buy one of my own. It was the reason I had saved my babysitting profits throughout high school and on into college. I imagined myself living out of the little cabin as I sailed up and down the west coast, stopping off at small, natural harbors to camp along the shoreline. I would rent a small apartment near the marina in San Rafael—or in the town of Tiburon if I was really lucky. And while other people spent their weekends pressed up against city crowds, I’d shove off and sail away.

  Don’t get me wrong. I know I wasn’t the first person to land far afield of a childhood dream. Most people probably do. And the fact that I had never followed through on my plan wasn’t a daily hang-up. I had a nice house in an appreciating neighborhood in Oakland, a secure government job, friends and family nearby. It was a fine life to be leading—even if it wasn’t the one I’d imagined, back when I was saving for my own Catalina. Of course I wondered whether things would have turned out differently if I’d bought one, but how can you know that? How can you know where a few random turns might take you? A few random turns might have changed everything. But I hadn’t taken a turn off my straightaway for a while by then.

  “I should go,” I told my mother. Thinking of the Catalina always made me moody.

  “We’ll see you Saturday then?”

  “Saturday?” I asked. “Oh, yeah. Of course.”

  “You forgot Saturday?”

  “No, I remember.”

  “It’s only our thirty-fifth anniversary. It would be nice to have our children present.”

  “I said I remembered. I’ll be there.”

  “Come early if you want. You should spend more time with your father,” she said.

  “He could spend more time with me,” I pointed out.

  “Don’t be like that. Not after what he’s been through.”

  I sank a little. She was right. My father had spent the first part of the year battling an aggressive form of lymphoma. Now, in August, he was officially in remission. I had a hunch that my father’s illness had a lot to do with my own malaise. The timing didn’t feel like a coincidence, but I hadn’t wanted to think too hard about it. I just wanted my focus back.

  “What about your brother?” my mother asked. “Do you know if he’s coming? I haven’t been able to reach him.”

  “Kurt?”

  “Well, I can track down Blake easily enough. By the way, don’t forget to congratulate him when you see him next. He’s over the moon about making drum major. I don’t know if Kurt even knows about that yet.”

  “I think he’s been focused on the move and the new job.”

  “So focused he couldn’t manage an RSVP to his parents’ party? Martina managed an RSVP. What sort of children have I raised?”

  “Speaking of Martina, I really have to go. I’m meeting her in an hour.” It was true, but it was also a good excuse.

  “How is that lovely girl?” Predictably, my mother softened. Martina wore skirts and dresses. Martina got manicures and waxed her brows. Martina followed fashion trends and kept old copies of Vogue and Glamour around for reference. Depending on her mood, my mother referred to my look as “messy,” “tomboy,” or “oblivious.” She was always happy to hear that Martina and I were still friends.

  “Martina knows that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” my mother was always reminding me. Maybe that was true, but who wanted to spend her life with a collection of flies?

  Chapter Four

  ON FRIDAY MORNING, I MET WITH MY SUPERVISOR, Fred Collins, to discuss the phone calls I’d continued to receive. By then, there had been six. Three livid, two indignant and one whiny. All referring to the poor man I’d wronged. All refusing to provide additional details—except to note that he was a much better person than I was.

  “So you’re looking for your better half,” Fred said, smiling.

  “It’s not funny,” I protested.

  Fred seemed as flummoxed as I, though he took pains to assure me that the calls wouldn’t be recorded as complaints in my employee file. “And none of them have made reference to a name or a town? Maybe an address?” he asked.

  “None. Believe me, I’ve tried to ask. They always end up hanging up on me.”

  “So how can you be sure they’re calling about the same taxpayer?”

  I thought about that. Auditing was based on facts, probabilities and calculations. This was just something I felt, something I was nearly sure of, but without the proof.

  “I’m not,” I ventured, “but it sounds like it. It’s always the same tone. How he’s so generous and that he’s had such a hard year. They say that he’d never do this to me. Only, I don’t know what I’ve done.”

  “Put it aside if you can. How’s everything else?” Fred asked. “In your work? In your life?”

  I didn’t want to get into it, especially not with my boss. “Fine,” I said.

  “You’ve been here what, ten, twelve years now?”

  “Six, actually.”

  “Only six?” Fred sounded surprised. “Doesn’t it seem like longer?”

  When I first joined the IRS, I hadn’t planned to travel the career track. It’s funny what you can wind up doing if you show an aptitude. If I’d been able to choose my talents, I’d probably have chosen something physical. I’d have been a gold medalist on the uneven bars. I’d have sailed solo down the Pacific coast at age twelve. But kids tend to develop talents noticed and nurtured by their parents. Given that my father was an accountant, it was my knack for numbers that was coddled, and it was just as well—I was too tall for a serious career in gymnastics and the Catalina was long gone. Now, at thirty-one, that knack for numbers had elevated me into the position of se
nior auditor. Plunk into the middle lane of the career track.

  Still, I found myself irked that Fred thought I’d been there for so much longer. Did I have the callous look of a lifer?

  “Are you saying that I’ve been here too long, or that I mesh well with our corporate culture?” I asked.

  He laughed. “What do you think?”

  Suddenly, I wondered if he had spotted my ungainly stack of unfinished audits. But Fred was the one who seemed distracted just then. He was gazing at the framed photograph of his wife that he kept atop his desk.

  “I should probably be getting back to my cubicle,” I said. A show of work ethic couldn’t hurt, especially if he’d sensed my ennui.

  “Did I ever tell you how I met Marcy?” he asked, half to me, half to the photograph. Fred Collins was a gentle man and well-meaning, but his stories tended to drone. So I lied and told him that he already had.

  “Anyway, I shouldn’t take up any more of your time,” I said, excusing myself.

  I was headed back to my cubicle when I turned a corner and almost barreled into Ricardo.

  “Just the lady I wanted to see,” Ricardo said.

  Beside him stood a tall man I didn’t recognize. He appeared even taller in contrast to Ricardo, who was a slight Filipino, no more than five-two.

  “Remember how I told you I made an offer for the archives position?” Ricardo asked.

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “Of course you do. Well, this is the guy. Jeff Hill, meet Sasha Gardner. Sasha is one of our senior auditors. That means that she rules this roost.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Jeff Hill said. I looked up and found myself staring into a pair of doleful brown eyes. Indeed, I would have thought him disappointed to be meeting me, had he not extended his hand.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I said. He was so tall and thin, he reminded me of a normally proportioned person who’d been stretched out. The same mass over an elongated frame. As we shook hands, I felt the tendons and ligaments running beneath his skin.

  “Sasha’s a lovely name,” Jeff Hill said, keeping hold of my hand for a moment longer than was comfortable. “You must be very skilled at your job to be a senior auditor at such a young age.”