The Floating Feldmans

by Elyssa Friedland

  Freddy could no longer stomach reading the article. It was too startling to see his words regurgitated. He sounded like a spoiled brat, not like a child who came from a loving home where his parents literally gave him everything. Of course he’d said a host of other things, he was sure of it. That his mom was an amazing baker and that he used her recipe when he sold pot brownies in college. That his father took him to science museums when he was little, which piqued his interest in chemistry and agriculture. But somehow he just knew that the reporter hadn’t captured those details, even in the later paragraphs. He forced himself to scan the rest of the article, a staggering five pages, which detailed the arc of his career. The convict he met in jail who told him about the opportunities in Colorado, his first investment (which tanked), getting a bank loan by pretending he was farming lavender, and so on and so forth.

  He shut his laptop and lay down on the bed, waiting for Natasha to return. She’d read the article and make him feel better, putting salve on his wound like always. Nobody read High Times anyway, other than the die-hard legalization folks and the aging stoners. There was zero chance of any Feldman coming across this. But still . . .

  He didn’t like the things he’d said. There was no need for him to bring his family into the article at all. His upbringing was cookie-cutter upper middle class and, if anything, sickeningly privileged, and he should have steered the conversation to the present. He could finagle the best financing from bank directors and arrange cutthroat rates from his bong manufacturers in China, but he couldn’t control a conversation with an acne-smeared intern whose jeans hung low around his ratty boxers? And besides, what was he complaining about? There were children in the most unfortunate of circumstances, with abusive parents or worse. His parents had grounded him often and their screaming could wake the dead, but he usually deserved it. His was hardly a sob story.

  Freddy checked his watch. Two hours until the family reconvened for another group dinner. Fourteen hours until he could disembark in Sint Maarten and enjoy some time alone with Natasha. The boat was massive, like fifty circus tents combined, with just as much psychedelic distraction, but still he felt his family’s judgment as clearly as if he were in a claustrophobic confessional booth with all of them. Things would be better on land, in the open air. He’d get through the around-the-world buffet tonight by imagining taking Natasha’s hand and crossing the gangway bright and early tomorrow morning.

  SEVENTEEN

  “Okay, let’s go through the questions one by one,” Elise said, sitting with her legs folded in an uncomfortable crisscross applesauce on Darius’s bed. Rachel had once shamed her for saying “Indian-style”—you’d think Elise had personally scalped someone—but ever since then she’d been firmly reconditioned into the more politically correct, nursery school terminology.

  She tapped the stapled copy of the common application nervously with the eraser side of her pencil. In this bleak room without even a window, and with the mildly nauseating lull of the ocean, where would she and Darius find inspiration for a plan of attack for his essay? Elise tried to mask her feelings, but even she got hives from these ridiculously open-ended essay suggestions.

  Think of a time you solved a difficult problem and explain what you learned from it.

  If you could have dinner with any three people, living, dead, or imagined, who would they be?

  Describe an activity in which you feel so engaged that you simply lose track of time.

  Sure, Elise had a ready answer for that last one, but it’s not like shopping would make for a suitable college essay. And Darius’s all-consuming activity was thinking about that trampy-looking girl in his grade, Marcy something-or-other. Yeah, she knew about his obsession. The way her son asked his friend Jesse “who all was going to the movies” and then waited with bated breath to see if he named Marcy. The way he turned around to have one more look at her before driving off with Elise, back before he had his license and she was still his on-call chauffeur. Oh, and she’d checked his email and gone through his entire search history on Google. It was what a responsible mother did and she didn’t have two licks of regret about it. She appreciated that Darius was too guileless to clear his browser history. There were at least some perks to having a child who wasn’t two steps ahead of you.

  Back to the questions, she thought, looking down at the paper once again. There were seven different “prompts” and none of them were particularly inspiring. Elise gave her head a strong shake, reminding herself that she wasn’t the one on trial, needing to cobble together enough positive qualities and persuasive reasons why College X should admit her. This was Darius’s problem and she was simply stewarding him along, a combination proofreader and taskmaster.

  “Anything jumping out at you?” she asked her son, who was sitting with his back to her at the desk, ostensibly to type up their ideas on the laptop. When she’d arrived at his room, he was lacing up sneakers, announcing without a trace of compunction that he needed to postpone their brainstorming session because Freddy had invited him to go rock climbing. What did her son think—that she was so desperate for the family to bond that she wouldn’t mind if he put her off so he could hang with his uncle? Maybe if her brother was a different sort of person, the kind who would give Darius the much-needed swift kick his bum needed, she’d have acquiesced. But Freddy was exactly the wrong influence around her son during this time—the boy who never grew up counseling the boy who still had a chance. Freddy honestly looked like a washed-up rock star with his silly hair, string bracelets, and vintage tees, though Darius probably thought it was cool. She could just imagine the conversation between the two of them, roasting her like a pig on a spit, giddy in their self-righteousness about being “laid-back.” So when her brother came to the door, she had no choice but to swiftly dismiss him. Her plan for the day was to solidify an essay choice for Darius and offer him some direction, and then head straight to her parents’ cabin to ask for the money.

  It was going to be a lot to tackle in one day, she thought, thumbing the necklace she’d purchased earlier. She had had every intention of abstaining while on board the ship. Frankly she’d never expected there to be any opportunity to part with money once they set sail. But her daughter was embarrassed by her very existence, her son looked upon her as a maternal albatross, and her parents were on their own island—and, damn it, that crescent charm on the twenty-four-karat chain had looked so dainty and elegant and was just the pick-me-up she needed. Besides, she was mere hours away from solving her financial crisis.

  “The first one,” Darius said, his voice muffled. Ever since he was a baby, when Darius was tired, he’d chewed on things. It started with his thumb, until the doctor made them put some terrible-tasting ointment on it to discourage the sucking. Elise remembered the screwed-up face Darius would make when his delicious thumb disappointed him so. Undeterred, he moved on to a weathered lamb blankie, then pen caps, and now the strings of his hoodie sweatshirts. Was there an essay there? Something about adaptability?

  “Okay!” Elise said a bit too enthusiastically. “What was the problem and what was your solution?” She rocked herself to standing on her knees, primed to tackle the six hundred and fifty words this beast required.

  “Huh? I thought that was the one with the dinner guests,” he mumbled.

  Elise dived forward and swiveled Darius around to face her.

  “Mom!” he yelled, having been thrown nearly off the seat by her force. “Calm down. I just got confused for a second.”

  “Darius, you need to focus. This is your future. If you don’t get this application done, you won’t go to college, which means you’ll have about zero decent job opportunities. Is that what you want? To do nothing with your life?” She’d been hoping to avoid this didactic tack, having assumed that, stuck on the boat without his iPhone and no-good posse (yes, she knew that word!), Darius would buckle easily under her pressure. She didn’t want to have to guilt Da
rius by talking about how much she and Mitch had put into raising him or to bring in Freddy as an example of what happens if a person doesn’t focus from a young age. But her son was giving her little choice.

  “But you didn’t—” Darius started to say, but she noticed him catching the sentence in midair.

  “I didn’t what?” she said, wanting and not wanting to know what her son thought of her. She dug her nails into the mattress.

  “You didn’t read all the essay options yet. I’m pretty sure there’s another one about how I’d want to change the world.”

  Elise unclenched her fists. Could that have been all he wanted to say? She didn’t think so. The air felt thick suddenly, a stew of unfinished thoughts clogging the atmosphere. She wanted desperately to crack a window, but the kids were in an interior cabin.

  “Right,” she said briskly. “I didn’t think the world question was the right one for us. I mean for you. Speaking of the world, are you looking forward to the buffet tonight? I heard the sushi is arranged on a gigantic block of ice in the shape of a Shinto temple. And one thousand macaroons are stacked in the shape of the Eiffel Tower.”

  “Cool,” Darius said, with about as much eagerness as a person sitting in the dentist’s chair awaiting a root canal. She remembered taking Rachel and Darius to Epcot when they were in grade school, how they’d tugged at her hands to pull her toward the wonders of France, China, and Mexico. In Japan, Darius had convinced her to buy him a set of metal chopsticks that he repurposed as ninja swords. Rachel had looked so cute in her pink Mickey fez that they got at the Moroccan bazaar, proudly wearing the wool cap even though it was sweltering—Disney tickets were much cheaper in the summertime. As kids, Freddy and Elise had the luxury of going over Christmas, when the lines were long but the weather was mild and breezy. Well, so what, Elise had thought at the time. Sweating it out builds character. She’d let them stay up way past their bedtime so they could enjoy the fireworks show and swing back into France for a late-night crepe. There could be no greater joy than this, she had thought, taking in her children’s sleepy faces, oversugared and overstimulated so they looked nearly comatose. Mitch had taken her hand later in the hotel room and together they’d stood looking down at their best work, nearly moved to tears by the rhythm of their children’s soft breathing and the way Darius, who always slept like a starfish, had his arm splayed across Rachel’s stomach.

  Ten years later, another world showcase, and things couldn’t be more different. Her daughter was walking around with gluten-free faux-nola bars from Whole Foods because she’d heard from some undisclosed source that “cruise food is nasty” and her son couldn’t muster up enthusiasm about anything on the boat other than spending time with his uncle. Had she too changed this much in the past decade, becoming a jaded, seen-it-all, done-it-all person? Was that why she was on a constant shopping spree, because she needed newness to invigorate her tired spirit? She made a mental note to email Dr. Margaret. If things were that simple, perhaps she could just dye her hair and become vegan and problem solved.

  “Well, even if you think it’s lame, try to put a smile on your face. Remember Grandma and Grandpa are paying for this and I’d like them to believe you’re actually enjoying it.”

  Elise wondered if he realized that what she was saying could apply equally to her, that she was officially the pot and not the kettle, though it was doubtful since Darius rarely seemed to consider anyone but himself. A symptom of teenitis, Elise hoped, and not a lifelong personality flaw. She shouldn’t have freaked out at her mom about the beverage package or rolled her eyes during charades or taken a nap during the nighttime comedian’s hokey act. Mitch was doing a much better job of faking it than she was, jumping up and down when he won twenty dollars at cash bingo, signing the family up for karaoke (which everyone refused—not only her), and complimenting the sloppy Joes at the lunch buffet while the rest of the family forked the ground beef with disdain.

  “I got it, Mom,” Darius said, and she had that awful feeling all over again, that she was as unwelcome in her son’s life as another zit. God, his skin looked awful, she thought now inopportunely. She really ought to bring him back to the dermatologist, but she didn’t want to trample on his self-esteem. He had to be bothered by it, though—his cheeks were so pockmarked he looked like a connect-the-dots drawing.

  Elise glanced at her watch. She wanted to make sure she located her parents before dinner. Mitch had gone off to use the golf simulator for a few hours with a couple of men he’d met at lunch (imagine getting chummy that easily with perfect strangers!) so she knew she wouldn’t stumble into him.

  “You know what, Darius? Why don’t you try to write two or three paragraphs on your own and I’ll read it later? I think I’m cramping your creativity.”

  Elise rose quickly and left the room before she had to see the relieved expression on her son’s face and hear his deep exhalation, ejecting their commingled air from his body. She wondered how many paces down the hall she’d make it before he snapped his laptop shut. She’d only made it three cabin doors down, but she could swear she heard the numbskull guffaw of the dad on Family Guy coming from the kids’ room. She shook off the itchy scarf of her disappointment and took the stairs the five flights up to her parents’ cabin.

  * * *

  —

  “Mom? Dad?” Elise rapped gently on their door a few times but nobody answered. Her parents had said they were going to lie down after lunch in order to rest up for the Gala Around the Globe, the formal title for the evening’s fress-fest. They were aging, Annette and David. Elise could see it in the bluish veins that ran just below the surface of their skin, the liver spots that could no longer be mistaken for freckles, and the curves of their spines that made it seem they were about to pick something up from the floor. They even walked differently, cautious and slow, always braced for a fall like they were roller-skating for the first time. They seemed to have aged about two decades since retirement, idleness sending the message to the brain that it ought to just shut down entirely. Should she suggest that the two of them pick up a hobby together? It didn’t have to be something active, like tennis or golf, but maybe bridge. When Elise dropped Darius off at the community center for basketball or to swim, she passed room after room filled with elderly foursomes gathered around card tables, fluorescent lighting bouncing off the silver hair. Her mother played mah-jongg already, but that seemed to be the domain of the ladies. It didn’t have to be a game at all. They could take up something entirely out of their wheelhouse: bird-watching, gardening, anything that would reignite their neural pathways and spring some life into their brittle bones.

  Her parents had been so worried for her after she quit medical school, concerned that she’d wither. It seemed to Elise that it was an eventuality for everyone and really just a question of when. Fortunately for her, raising Rachel and Darius kept her on her toes like a prima ballerina. At least it had until recently, when her role converted to backup dancer. Seeing her parents descend into old age was causing Elise to reflect on her own trajectory. After so many days of repetitive behavior—grocery shopping, driving carpool, preparing dinner—it had been easy to feel that she was standing still and not on a moving walkway. She pictured the entrance to Bloomingdale’s at the Palisades Mall. The automatic doors from the parking garage opened onto the young, contemporary section with the hot designers and bright colors. She used to shop there, choosing wacky prints and daring higher hemlines. When did she make the decision to bypass that department and head straight for the A-line dresses and sensible pumps? Did it happen overnight or had it been gradual? There was the day she had been embarrassed to go to a friend’s birthday luncheon in a one-shoulder pink blouse and had run inside the house to change. And the time when Rachel taught her how to snap a picture of her back with her phone and she’d suddenly noticed dimples of cellulite that she had no way of dating. It didn’t matter when the total eclipse of her youth occurred. She coul
d hardly remember what it felt like to be spry and energetic. It only came upon her in unexpected bouts of déjà vu, like when she heard a certain song on the radio or threw on her old Columbia Med School sweatpants.

  “Excuse me, did you lose your room key?” came a sudden voice.

  Elise whirled around and saw a short, brown-skinned woman wheeling a housekeeping cart. Her name tag read Abeba, Papua New Guinea. All of the staff on board wore name tags that stated their country of origin. Nobody was from America or even western Europe. It was mostly East Asia and Africa represented. She wondered what they must think of all these travelers, fretting about getting priority use of the ice-skating rink or front-row seats for the nighttime entertainment. Frivolous concerns for frivolous people, and she was maybe among the worst of the lot with her buy, buy, buy mentality.

  “Yes, yes. Thank you so much.” Elise leaned down to read the name again. “Abeba.”

  She didn’t think twice about entering her parents’ room without permission, much like she used to barge into their master bedroom as a child. Occasionally the door would be locked and by the time she was a teenager she knew what that was about. They had lived alone now for decades, but Elise wondered if their door was ever metaphorically locked anymore. She followed Abeba into the room, expecting to find her parents napping, explaining why they didn’t come to the door.

  She felt oddly small standing in her parents’ cabin, the echoes of entering their private sphere as a child more poignant than she expected. The cruise was reinforcing how fluid her life was at this point: She was a child and a parent and neither role felt totally second skin. The labels were fungible, especially for her and Mitch, the only ones in the group sandwiched between generations—serving both roles simultaneously, feeling powerless in each position. They were the bread, the peanut butter, and the jelly, and it was exhausting.