The Floating Feldmans

by Elyssa Friedland

  “Holy shit,” he said when he stepped into her room, because his mouth had run away from his brain.

  “You like?” she asked, doing a quick twirl. He noticed black eyeliner rimming her brown eyes and the lip gloss that made her mouth look wet.

  “Yes. Did you borrow that from the dry cleaner’s?” He didn’t intend to be hurtful, but he had always wondered if that sort of thing happened. Angelica widened her eyes dramatically, pretending to be scandalized.

  “That’s actually against the dry cleaning code of ethics,” she said. “In our business, it’s basically on par with murder. I got this at Forever 21 last year when they were doing their prom sale.”

  Darius looked past Angelica and saw a tiny old Asian woman slumped into a wheelchair. She had a black beaded scarf draped over her outfit to obscure the fact that she had not otherwise gone black tie for the evening.

  “That’s Grandma,” Angelica said, following his gaze. She started speaking to the woman in Chinese, presumably talking about him, because the woman started addressing him.

  “I don’t speak Chinese,” Darius said to Angelica, feeling helpless.

  “It’s Mandarin. Not Chinese. But don’t worry about Grandma. She was saying that you are very handsome.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” Darius said. He might not understand Mandarin, but he could tell from the way the old lady twisted her face and raised her pointer finger at him menacingly that she most definitely had not called him handsome.

  “Fine,” Angelica said, walking over to her grandmother and resting her hands on her shoulders, which seemed to relax the woman. “She told you not to get me pregnant and ruin my life, because I have a big future ahead of me.”

  Darius felt heat rush to his face in a sudden volcanic eruption.

  “Relax!” Angelica said, obviously seeing his crimson shading. “She’s nuts. And just wants the best for me.”

  “Yes, yes. Harvard. I know all about it,” Darius said, running a jittery hand through his hair. He mustered the courage to flash Grandma a thumbs-up to reassure her that there was no chance of him impregnating anyone on this ship.

  “Now let me see that,” Angelica said, touching his hand and loosening his grasp on the bow tie with her fingers. “Easy.” He ducked down a bit so she could wrap the tie around his neck and Darius noticed her cleavage, minimal but there nonetheless, protruding into his sight line and demanding attention. There were leg men and ass men (Jesse was definitely the latter and he had all sorts of crude names to refer to girls’ behinds: booty, bedunkedonk, can, caboose, and tail-feather, to name a few), but he, Darius Connelly, was decidedly a breast man.

  True to her word, Angelica had fixed up his tie in seconds and she was now standing back from him to admire her handiwork.

  “Looking suave,” she said, making a peace sign.

  “Thanks,” Darius said, poking his head into the bathroom to see his reflection. He looked passable, definitely nothing approximating suave. But when he squinted hard, his acne pockmarks disappeared, and that took him a little closer to handsome. “Want to go down together?”

  “Yes,” Angelica said brightly. “If you don’t mind wheeling Grandma and waiting forever for the handicapped elevator. But first I want to check my email. I applied for a few scholarships and need to make sure everything is copacetic.”

  “You have internet in here?” Darius asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yep. My uncle is a really big spender.” She must have repeated the same in Mandarin to her grandma because the old lady nodded vigorously and made the universal hand signal for money.

  “Can I check my email after you?” Darius asked. What he really wanted was to see all the text messages he’d missed, but he hadn’t bothered to bring his phone, which was impotent without the internet. Email would have to do.

  “Sure,” Angelica said, plopping down on the bed. She tapped away at the keys and Darius stood awkwardly, feeling too tall, too white, too useless. Now he wished he had brought the book.

  “All good,” Angelica chirped, gesturing for him to sit next to her. “Your turn.”

  Darius took the computer and logged into his account. He had about a dozen emails from the school about registering for classes, new policies about leaving campus during the day, and a refresher on the antibullying policy. He ignored them all. Scrolling down, he saw one email from Jesse with the subject line sup. He clicked it open, but it was blank inside. Darius responded nada and hit send. They communicated like Neanderthals. Below Jesse’s email he saw an email from mcl777@gmail.com. His pulse raced. M.C.L. . . . those could be Marcy’s initials. He was pretty sure her middle name was Christine. Marcy Christine Lungstrom, emailing him! This was a first. He clicked on the email, but nothing happened. He pressed harder, jamming his index finger into the mouse pad.

  “You okay?” Angelica asked.

  “It’s not opening,” Darius said, hearing the way it came out as an accusation, as if it was Angelica’s fault that he couldn’t find out what Marcy had written to him. Assuming it was Marcy.

  “Yeah, the internet is pretty crappy. I was emailing my chess coach the other day and had written out this whole long question for him about the Italian opening and then the internet crapped out and I lost everything.”

  Chess coach . . . how could Angelica possibly compare the importance of rooks and pawns with a communiqué from Marcy Lungstrom, goddess incarnate? Out of aggravation, he yanked at his bow tie but stopped short of undoing it.

  “Hey, you’re ruining my handiwork,” Angelica protested.

  “Sorry. Do you think we could just wait here for a few minutes and see if the internet comes back?” Darius asked. Angelica translated the question for her grandma, who decisively said no with a vigorous head shake.

  Darius was beside himself. He hadn’t even seen what Marcy had written in the subject line. Was it “Hey”? He thought it might have been. Or was it the more suggestive “Hi there”? He was ninety-nine percent sure it started with an H. What if it was “Help” and she needed him for something important?

  “Grandma doesn’t want to miss a minute of the party tonight,” Angelica said. “Sorry.”

  Darius moved the laptop back onto the desk, looking at it forlornly as he left the room with Angelica at his side and Grandma rolling ahead in front.

  * * *

  —

  The cocktail hour was in the Starboard Ballroom. Guests would have one hour to drink and mingle before being scattered to smaller ballrooms for the sit-down portion of the evening. The ballroom had been transformed completely from its prior use the night before, when a combination magic and light show had taken place after dinner. Twinkling lights were strung from the ceiling and votive candles and faux flowers sat on every tabletop. A large banner read: MAY ALL YOUR FANTA-SEAS COME TRUE.

  “This is gorgeous,” Angelica said, her eyes widening.

  “I see my people,” Darius said, pointing ahead. “Maybe I’ll see you later. My family is in the Horizon Room for the dinner. You’re in Tide, right?”

  Angelica nodded and Darius waved to her grandma, who gave him an “I’m watching you” stare for a good-bye. She may have been topping ninety and confined to a wheelchair, but she was fierce.

  He strode over to his family, who were gathered near a crudité model of the Ocean Queen. Grandma Annette was bent over it, inspecting the architecture of the foundation, which was made of stacks of raw onion rounds. It was incredible, there could be no denying that, and it felt almost criminal to wrestle a red pepper from the water slide replica or take a celery stalk from the oval arrangement that made up the jogging track.

  “Could you get me a drink from the bar?” Darius whispered in Rachel’s ear. Normally loath to ask her for a favor, he felt tonight was not one on which he could stand on ceremony. She agreed rather easily and came back a few minutes later carrying two “ginger ales,” which she mouthe
d to him were actually vodkas mixed with Pepsi, hence the goldish color that made them pass for Canada Dry.

  Darius looked at his mother. He still hadn’t had the chance to do much investigating into the shopping situation, or to speak with Freddy about it. Tonight she was wearing a dress he didn’t recognize, a light pink lace, but that didn’t mean anything. It wouldn’t be weird for her to buy something new to wear on the boat, or maybe it was an old outfit and he just didn’t remember it. Until he’d found all those bags in the attic, Darius had never paid a lick of attention to his mother’s clothing. She could have had fifty pairs of shoes or five, for all he knew.

  Grandma Annette gave him a big hug and made a fuss over how handsome he looked. Ever since they’d gone on that walk together the first day, she’d been treating him extra lovingly. When she bit into her Mexican chocolate cake at the around-the-world feast, she’d singled him out as the only one at the table who just had to try it. Was it that easy, Darius wondered, to satisfy his grandmother? If he’d known that, maybe he would have picked up the phone every now and then to check in. He was embarrassed by how little thought he gave her or Grandpa David. Even Jesse had a monthly brunch date with his grandparents, but they lived in Modesto.

  Freddy, no surprise, was not in a tuxedo, but in an unexpected nod to the evening’s formality, he had gelled his longish hair into a tighter-than-usual man-bun. Natasha was a boob man’s delight, resplendent—overflowing, frankly—in a gold sequined dress that pushed the bookends of her rib cage even closer together.

  His father gave him a series of staccato pats on the back. Mitch seemed overly excited, like someone who had had too many cups of coffee and had no place to burn off his extra energy. Darius observed him ask everyone about their adventures off the boat but then barely have the patience to listen to their answers. At one point, he swept his mother into a quasi-twirl-dip that might have had something to do with the background music but could have just been totally random. Darius cringed at the awkwardness, but when he looked over at Rachel, she seemed oddly enchanted by the whole thing, a heck of a lot more relaxed than she’d seemed in their room earlier. Maybe she’d won at the slots or the “ginger ale” was already working its magic.

  His father suggested they ask someone to take their picture. He was big on documenting family time and was known to make hapless strangers do ten or more retakes until he was satisfied it was Bee photojournalism quality.

  “I’ll take it,” Darius offered. He hated being in pictures. His forced smile was hideous—too much teeth and an unexplained need to widen his eyes. But if he tried a serious face, he looked like a future serial killer in a yearbook photo.

  “No,” Mitch said. “We all need to be in it tonight. This is a special occasion and I want to have a memory of it.”

  Huh? Rachel was right. Something was off and the weirdness didn’t stop with their mother. Their dad was never this sappy.

  “Let’s do it later when we’re at the table, Mitch,” Grandma Annette said. “I want to touch up my makeup in the ladies’ room first. You’ll come with me, Elise. I happen to have an extra tube of lipstick in my purse in a good color for you. I’m surprised you always choose that same nude one.”

  Darius saw his mother grimace.

  Waiters flitted around with trays and while the parentals and grandparentals sampled the nibbles, Rachel and Darius gave each other knowing glances as they avoided food altogether to concentrate on their beverages. His father flagged down a server and requested glasses of champagne for the grown-ups and sparkling cider for the “kiddies.” Couldn’t his dad let the waitress deduce that he was a minor on her own by looking at his raging acne and bulbous Adam’s apple?

  “Bring your finest bottle. Please bill it to my expense account, cabin 7732,” Mitch added inexplicably. Darius saw his mother give his father a “What the hell are you doing?” look that he chose to ignore. Darius, only because he was standing next to her, heard his grandma mutter to his grandpa that he was only allowed a single sip of the champagne, which was bizarre because his grandfather was many things—stern, didactic, a die-hard Rangers fan—but he was not an alcoholic. Natasha said, “Ooh, champers, great!” and slipped an arm through Freddy’s.

  While the server went off to retrieve the bubbly, there was some idle chatter about everybody’s excursions, but Darius could barely concentrate. He heard something about the tour van breaking down at a gas station from his grandma and then his uncle mentioned a thirty-pound grouper that broke somebody’s line—but all he could really focus on were the initials M.C.L. and getting back to a computer. He wondered if he could ask Angelica for her room key and slip away during dinner. He saw her from across the room gathered with her family. She was imitating something that involved a lot of hip shaking and shimmying (which he hoped wasn’t the image of him sidling out of the wetsuit) and everyone in her party was laughing hysterically.

  The waitress reappeared with the champagne and his father took the bottle from her hands and poured everyone a healthy serving that brought fizz down the sides of the glasses. Darius accepted his sparkling cider gingerly.

  Grandpa David started to say that he’d visited the hospital on the ship—it’s like a miniature version of Beth Israel—and spoke to the chief resident about protocol. Darius felt his stomach burbling. Just the talk of a mass virus spreading on board made him queasy. He couldn’t handle being quarantined, not when he needed to collect interesting stories about the cruise to tell Marcy. Not when he urgently needed a strong Wi-Fi connection.

  “Fascinating, David. Just fascinating,” Mitch said. “Now, you might be wondering why I ordered the champagne when I’m typically a Guinness guy. I happen to have a big announcement and I wanted to share it with all of you. We are so rarely together, after all.”

  Darius noticed his grandma shake her head at no one in particular, as if she was thinking, Well, whose fault is that? His mom gaped at his dad with a confused look that made it clear she wasn’t in on whatever news was forthcoming. Rachel was sucking vigorously through her straw and barely looked up.

  “Anyway, before I say anything, I want everyone to know I’ve given this a great deal of thought.”

  Darius was reminded of a recent school assembly when a quiet boy he’d known since kindergarten had taken the mic—it was the first time Freddy could recall hearing his voice—and announced he was going to become a girl. I, Ben Nordeman, the boy said in a voice that grew more confident by the syllable, will now be known as Bianca. And then he said something that echoed what Darius’s dad had just said . . . I’ve given this a lot of thought. He was pretty sure his father was going in a different direction.

  “I’ve worked at the Bee since finishing journalism school. Twenty-two years. I started as the local politics reporter, then moved up to national affairs, then deputy editor, and then what I am today—or was, rather—managing editor.”

  Was? Now he had everyone’s attention.

  “I’ve been satisfied by my career and it has provided for my family, but I felt I needed a change. I resigned my post two weeks ago and will be launching an online literary journal with a focus on satire. Only thing missing is a name. I thought we could all raise a glass to this new phase.”

  Natasha squealed. Freddy looked uncomfortable. Rachel finally looked up from her drink. Darius jammed his hands into the pockets of his tux because he needed to do something.

  “Mitch, are you serious?” Elise said. “You didn’t think to consult your wife about a thing like this before you announce it in front of all these people!” She slammed down her glass hard and Darius was surprised when it didn’t shatter. He didn’t think her “these people” would sit too well with his grandparents.

  “I honestly had made up my mind, Elise. And we’re in a good place now. I thought it would be more exciting to make the announcement on the trip, in front of the kids and your parents. Don’t you remember your parents used to treat
us to dinner once a week at that fancy Italian place on the Upper West Side when we were both in grad school—the one that was next to the dry cleaner’s that reeked of bleach?”

  Darius took offense on behalf of Angelica with the dry cleaning dig. No way her family’s store, Harvard Cleaners, stank.

  “What the hell does that have to do with you announcing you’ve quit your job in public?” Elise barked, and Darius had to agree—he failed to see the connection.

  “Just that your parents have helped us out along the way and it seemed right they should be here,” he said.

  “Thank you, Mitch,” Grandma Annette said, dabbing at her eyes with a cocktail napkin. Damn, this woman was in need of some loving, thought Darius. Every little overture made her mawkish (another dreaded SAT word). “And, Elise, now you can tell Mitch about your business plan. Since he’s not going to be at the Bee anymore! We felt awkward about lending you so much money with all this need for secrecy.” She clasped her hands together gleefully.

  His mother went ashen. Darius pictured the attic. Somehow he just knew it was all related.

  “What business plan?” Mitch said. Now it was his father’s turn to look confused and hurt. “You’re borrowing money from your parents?”

  “It’s nothing,” Elise said swiftly. “I’ll tell you later. Let’s toast you now!”

  Well, that was a quick about-face, Darius thought.

  “No, tell me now,” Mitch said gruffly.

  The tension was steak-knife-cuttable. Darius ditched his straw and took a large gulp of his drink. He missed his friends, especially Jesse. He missed Marcy, who was so achingly beautiful. He missed Angelica too, whom he’d temporarily lost in the crowd.

  A waiter came by with mini tarts and all the Feldmans instantly seized up. They were, true to form, well behaved in public. As Grandma Annette liked to say, “It’s always better to steal a scene than to cause one.” Freddy took a tartlet off the tray and popped it into his mouth. Rachel reached for one as well. It was the first boat-issued food item that Darius could recall seeing his sister eat. The inside of her suitcase was jam-packed with Kind Bars and boxes of raisins, as though she expected a shipwreck.