Free Study in Perfect by Sarah Gorham Page A

field to road, stoplight to dashboard.
    Remember the story about a girl who crashed when she leaned forward to adjust the radio dial? Fiddling with a rearview mirror was just as dangerous:
Eyes on the road, driver
. Thinking himself vigilant, he slowed way too early for an intersection many yards away. Brake lights ahead were doubled, though the left-hand set rarely stayed still, stretching, retracting. Like Turkish taffy, he observed.
    By the time he steered his wagon onto Market Street and pulled into our narrow driveway at 1611, he was radiating, blood a low purr. Up the steep stairs, one hand, sometimes two, on the pipe handrail to the second floor apartment, where his wife and two young daughters slept in three tiny bedrooms.
    We slid into deeper sleep when his book bag slumped into the captain’s chair. He was home.

    Something goes BUMP, the cat hits the door, head or hat misjudging, or perhaps it is only the door itself slamming into the wall.
    The children are seated by the window, the weather chill and rainy, not at all conducive to imaginative play. They startle, lifting an inch off their butts. Even the curtains jump, and then the door swings open.
    Not a straight line on him. He doesn’t appear to have a skeleton! Hat beating his foot inside the door, it leans that far forward. Did he roll out of bed, tail like a mangled pipe cleaner, forgetting to shed his jammies and put on something more presentable? Why isn’t the cat at work, doing something constructive? On two legs he lurches in, tipping his hat, balancing his drippy umbrella on the end of his thumb. He knows some games; he has saved up a bunch of tricks to make a great day. This cat brings
fun
; he doesn’t care if mother is out running errands or a meeting, or anything else.

    â€œCome on …” he pleaded, proposing on our honeymoon that we blow several hundred on a meal at Harry’s Bar and then sipa bottle of wine on a gondola ride through Venice’s back canals. Seventy dollars for a half-hour! Under this bridge, duck, quick. Let’s go for more! The curried sole with polenta, the lazy dark, sonic with far-off festivity, and a traffic jam made of boats. But to tell the truth, twenty-five years later that’s what we remember, little more.
    Italy seeded a taste for motorcycles too, and though I protested it was groceries we were burning, he bought a bright red Vespa with matching helmets. Scents and temperature brightened unlike anything we’d known in a car. Lilac! Manure! Fried chicken! We dipped into a gully like a glass of ice water, took the full hit of a mown lawn, though I warned him to avoid the shavings, shouting through my face mask and the wind. Conversation was ridiculous, riding was risky, but it was a magnificent thrill.
    Happy to play the fool in shrill animal voices the children loved (Wamu the Jamaican rag doll rescued from a burning building by Purpley the stuffed elephant, who stretched out his trunk so she could slide down), he performed mesmerizing dramas without the soggy moral or neat conclusion. Sure his face was a little too red like he was about to pop. Sure there was something disquieting in all that energy. Dads were supposed to be grown-ups. But yes, yes, another game, another game! He gave each girl a full glass of water, filled his mouth, and exploded in a spit-take. Soon they were feeding each other knock-knock jokes, bursting before the punch line was out, soaked and drooling. He bought seven cans of shaving cream on Halloween and they decorated the rhododendrons, gleefully appearing later with sprayed-on beards, scary eyebrows, and beehive hairdos.

    According to the company’s literature, over 370 million cases of Seagram’s Seven have been sold since 1934, giving this brand the distinction of being consumed more often than any other brand of whiskey in the history of the United States. The ingredients list is straightforward—corn, rye, rye malt, barley malt, yeast,