The Floating Feldmans

by Elyssa Friedland

  “Don’t!” Freddy said suddenly, with his mouth full. He knocked Rachel’s hand away from her mouth. “I think these have sesame in them.”

  “Really?” Rachel said, trying to speak with her tongue out. She started wiping her mouth frantically with a napkin.

  “Why are you telling her not to eat that?” Elise asked, turning abruptly to face Freddy.

  “Because she’s allergic to sesame seeds,” Freddy said, clearly not understanding the question.

  “But she only developed her sensitivity to sesame seeds three years ago. It happened to her after she got a terrible flu in high school and her immune system totally broke down and reconfigured.”

  Darius looked from Freddy to Rachel and back again, watching as they attempted to hatch some type of coherent response telepathically. It was the same communication he would have with Jesse when either of their mothers interrogated them about where they’d been.

  “Yes, how do you know that?” Mitch said, also agitated. Darius had always thought it was his mother who had the bigger issue with Freddy and his dad just kind of played along. But his father was definitely not loving the idea that Freddy and Rachel were on intimate, allergy-awareness terms.

  “Doth my thongue look swollen?” Rachel asked. She stuck it out like a frog. “I feel like ith gething bigger. Ith thingling. Someone pleath look at ith.”

  “Why don’t I go find the waiter or someone who can tell us if there were sesame seeds in the recipe or not?” Natasha asked sensibly and left without waiting for an answer.

  “I’ll come with you,” Freddy said, dashing off behind her.

  “What business plan?” Mitch repeated.

  “Let’s discuss it after we know if Rachel is okay,” Elise said firmly.

  “She’s fine. Right, David?” Grandma Annette said rather strongly. “Elise, didn’t you tell me the worst thing that happens to her is that she gets a rash? It’s not anaphylactic.”

  “Ith not anathylathic yet,” Rachel said, barely able to speak coherently with her lips puckered and her tongue protruding.

  Grandpa David took a large gulp from his champagne glass like he was gunning it in beer pong.

  “David,” Grandma Annette exclaimed, forcibly taking the glass out of her husband’s hand. “You cannot be having this much alcohol.”

  “I’ll do whatever I damn please,” David said, which shocked Darius. He’d never heard his grandfather raise his voice to his grandma.

  “Elise, I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner about leaving the Bee,” his dad persisted, ignoring Rachel. “I honestly thought you’d be excited for me to pursue my dreams. Can we please go back to why you asked your parents for money?”

  “Which, by the way, we may not be able to lend you at this time,” Grandpa David said, attempting to pry the champagne from Grandma Annette’s grasp. “Notwithstanding what your mother said about the secrecy making us uncomfortable.”

  Darius looked at Rachel and she looked back at him, panic-stricken. Maybe with forces united they could have prevented the current mess.

  “If you need money, by the way, you should probably ask your brother for it,” Mitch said sharply. “He’s a millionaire.”

  “What?” Elise said, looking on the verge of fainting.

  “It’s true. Your brother is the most successful drug dealer around.”

  “Don’t speak such nonsense about our son,” Grandpa David said reproachfully. “Besides, Elise wouldn’t need money from us anyway if she’d stayed in medical school. Or if you had a better-paying job.”

  “Are you seriously bringing that up now?” Mitch asked, bewilderment seeming to overtake his anger.

  Around them, a crowd had started to form. Inopportunely, the jazz trio went on break, as if to encourage eavesdropping.

  “Yes, I am,” David said defiantly.

  “You’re being a real jerk, you know that?” Mitch said.

  David set down his drained champagne glass, raised both his arms like he was in retreat, then shook his head and jammed his shoulder into Mitch as he moved to step past him.

  Darius’s father went to push back, but Grandpa David ducked quickly, which meant that Mitch’s open palm landed directly on his nose. Grandpa David yelped in pain. A drop of bright red blood streamed down his chin and landed on the white of his tuxedo shirt. Rachel and Elise screamed in unison.

  “He’s not well!” Annette shouted at Mitch. “What’s wrong with you?”

  And that was exactly when Freddy and Natasha reappeared.

  “Mom? Elise? What the hell is going on?” Freddy asked, stumbling. “Dad, are you okay?” He dabbed at his father’s nose with a napkin. Between Grandma Annette’s wailing, Rachel’s tongue scrubbing, and Grandpa David’s bloody nose, they must have used up a hundred Paradise International cocktail napkins.

  Natasha looked utterly petrified. As the only one without a branch on this crazy family tree, she was free to simply walk away. But Darius watched her grab ice out of Rachel’s fake soda and divide it between two paper napkins while the rest of the family just stood gaping.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  When the gurneys had been dismissed and all the other boat guests relocated, the Feldmans sat in a circle in silence. David’s nose had stopped bleeding. Mitch said his shoulder felt better. Rachel’s lips didn’t swell up. Everybody had stopped crying for the time being. The cruise director had fled the scene of the crime.

  Annette was feeling so many emotions it was hard for her to discern which one was the most overriding. There was shock about learning Freddy was a millionaire, and in the drug world, no less. There was anxiety about Elise, since clearly the cockamamie diabetes app she’d told them about was a fiction, covering up something much worse. Disappointment toward her son-in-law for not realizing he should have consulted with his wife before making a gigantic career change. Concern about Rachel, who she suspected was hiding more than her relationship with Freddy. Compassion for Darius, who seemed the most innocent of the lot, though couldn’t he just write his damn essay already? Worry that she might have outed David’s illness when he’d been so perfectly clear about his wishes to keep it a private matter. Embarrassment in front of that handsome cruise director and all the other passengers, who had stared at them like they were a bunch of wild animals thrown into a cage together for the first time. And guilt, of course, because she was the one who’d engineered this whole trip, who put her family into a crucible and lit the burner.

  She had been so foolish to insist on the cruise. Instead of bringing them closer together, they were in a worse position than when they started. The status quo had not needed tampering with. She and Elise spoke once a week. Facebook allowed them to see that Freddy was alive and healthy. The grandchildren called for her birthday and knew enough to thank her for the gifts she sent them. David probably would have been better off at home. The doctor who said a trip might do him good clearly didn’t realize she was throwing him into a tempest. His weekly radiation appointment was more soothing than the Ocean Queen.

  Annette knew she should be the first one to speak. She was still the team captain, even if she desperately wanted to abdicate the role.

  “Well, this evening certainly didn’t go as planned,” she finally said.

  Mitch crossed his arms across his chest. Elise was nervously tying and untying the lace ribbon on her dress.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Freddy said, putting a hand on hers. His touch sent a shiver down her spine. The last time she’d felt his open palm, it had been soft and bare. He’d probably been a boy no older than thirteen and she was still forcing him to hold hands when they crossed the street. Now his hands were rough, with hair on the knuckles, and so much bigger than hers. “I should probably explain some things.”

  “Let me do it,” Rachel said, looking at her uncle. Freddy nodded for her to go ahead. Her granddaughter looked like a human Pando
ra’s box.

  “I went to visit Freddy last spring when I said I was in Guatemala.” She spoke in a sprint, as if she couldn’t free herself of the admission fast enough.

  “She was the best house guest,” Natasha interjected.

  “She wasn’t supposed to be a house guest. She was supposed to be building houses,” Mitch snapped.

  Natasha pretended not to hear him. “You should be proud of Rachel. She was also quite the hostess to us.”

  “Hostess?” Elise asked Freddy. “You went to visit Rachel at Stanford and didn’t think to tell us? We live an hour away—I’d have thought you might have told us if you were in the area, considering we haven’t laid eyes on you in—I don’t know—three or four years.”

  “Well, it was sort of last—” Freddy started to say, throwing an exasperated “How could you?” look at Natasha.

  “Uncle Freddy, it’s fine,” Rachel said, putting her hand on his arm. “Thanks for helping me, but I need to come clean. I got arrested in April and Freddy bailed me out.”

  “Arrested?” This Annette simply couldn’t believe. Freddy was some kind of superstar drug dealer and now her granddaughter was in trouble with the law? She longed for the days when the worst she thought of all the Feldmans was that they were distant and self-involved. “Was there some kind of protest on campus?” Annette remembered her roommate at George Washington University going from one sit-in to another. Sometimes it was civil rights; other times, the women’s movement. There was always the risk of arrest and Annette just couldn’t ever bring herself to join in, no matter how strongly she believed in the causes. To defend her family, she would chain herself to a fence or face a wrecking ball, but for people she didn’t know, whose problems were real but remote, she didn’t have that kind of courage. Maybe Rachel did.

  “No, it was nothing like that,” Rachel said, taking another gigantic slurp of her soda.

  I really ought to review table manners with that child, Annette found herself thinking despite the tumult.

  “I had a little too much to drink and got into it with a police officer. Well, it was campus security, but apparently they have arresting power.”

  “‘Got into it’?” Mitch prodded.

  Natasha giggled out of nowhere.

  “Something funny about this?” David said to her. He was sweating and his fists were still clenched. Annette had to get him out of here. This was too much stress for him to take. But she knew it would be difficult to extricate him with all of these truths about their family being laid bare. They still hadn’t gotten to the matter of Elise being broke or Freddy’s supposed millions.

  “Natasha is laughing because of what happened,” Rachel explained. “There was this thing called a Porn Party on campus, which sounds worse than it is. You just dress up in a ridiculous outfit, something sexy. I got this idea to make a skirt out of balloons only. And then, I guess I had a little too much Tito’s, and I went over to this campus security guard and asked him to pop my balloons.”

  “Rachel!” Elise gasped.

  “That was it?” David asked. “They arrested you for that?” David had always hated law enforcement and was known to scuffle with the security guards at the hospital over what he felt were overly tedious searches at the metal detector.

  “Well, when he said no, I tried to take his handcuffs. He brought me down to the local precinct and Freddy bailed me out. There are more details, but those are the broad strokes. And I’m really, really sorry about it. I knew you would freak out and be so disappointed in me and I just couldn’t face calling you.” She put her head in her hands and dropped it between her knees.

  “Rachel, your father and I will discuss this privately and address it with you later,” Elise said. Annette was proud of her daughter for managing to keep her cool. She’d never had that kind of composure when it came to Freddy. Maybe that spared Elise from being called a “fucking bitch” behind closed doors.

  “That’s right, Rachel. We need time to digest this,” Mitch said. “Elise, can you please explain why you said we have no money? I was under the impression we were far from broke,” Mitch said.

  Annette watched the panic spread across her son-in-law’s face. This new development was surely going to impede his professional plans. Timing was never Elise’s strong suit. She quit medical school a beat before Annette and David’s twentieth anniversary party, which had brought on a string of irritating questions all night long.

  “And what does all of this have to do with you starting a business?” Mitch continued.

  “I’d like to understand that myself,” David said.

  “Me too,” Freddy said quietly.

  “Kids, why don’t you go to your cabin,” Elise said. “Or to the teen lounge. I think there’s a silent disco tonight after the dinner.”

  “OMG, I’ve been dying to try a silent disco,” Natasha said. “Look at these pics of the girls from work at Cloud Nine.” Natasha started to pull up images on her phone.

  “Will you please put away that fakakta thing?” Annette said. “You’re worse than the teenagers.”

  “Mom!” Freddy said, putting a protective arm around Natasha, who looked like she was about to burst into tears.

  “That’s because the kids don’t have the Wi-Fi plan,” Mitch explained to no one in particular. “Trust me, they’d be on them incessantly if they did.”

  “Why are we talking about phones?” David said. “I want to understand why my daughter has no money.” He lowered his voice dramatically. “I would also like to understand how—and why—my son is involved in the illegal drug world.”

  “Legal,” Natasha and Freddy said at the same time.

  “Kids, you need to leave,” Elise repeated.

  “You keep telling me to act like an adult, Mom,” Darius said, speaking up for the first time. “There is obviously something serious going on and I’d like to know what it’s about. You can’t send us off to some kids’ dance party and think we’re going to forget what we heard.” Annette saw the determination in his face and wondered what he already knew.

  “Fine. Just fine. You want to stay, you can stay. Listen, I’m not proud of it,” Elise said, speaking slowly, her voice in a timid staccato, “but I’ve developed something of a shopping problem. It started small. A new dress, some shoes. A set of dishes. But things spiraled out of control rather quickly.”

  “I went to the attic,” Darius said quietly. “I found your stash.”

  “I heard you on the phone with your therapist,” Rachel added.

  “Why am I the last one to know anything that is happening under my roof?” Mitch demanded.

  “I wouldn’t start if I were you,” Elise said, raising her voice. “You left your job without telling me. You announced your plans in front of my family so I couldn’t object or disapprove. Well, I don’t care what they hear anymore. You shouldn’t have quit without consulting me. If you had told me your plans, perhaps I would have shared my situation and told you why you couldn’t leave the Bee now.”

  “You’re shifting blame, Elise,” Annette said, instantly regretting her interjection. She ought to be a silent spectator, but it was just so excruciating to sit back and watch her children say and do all of the wrong things. Perhaps that was what her husband had felt all these years about their daughter’s choices, like a steaming pot that can’t keep its lid.

  “Stay out of it,” everyone seemed to say to her at once. Fine, she’d quiet down. Who was she anyway, except the reason all these people even existed?

  “You shouldn’t lecture anyone on keeping secrets, by the way,” Elise said. “I saw all the meds in your room. I know why we’re on this cruise even if you don’t want us to know.”

  Before Annette had a chance to formulate an answer, Freddy interrupted.

  “Mom isn’t sick, Elise. Dad is.”

  “What?” Elise’s question came o
ut as a squeaky gasp. Annette watched her daughter process the information. Not only had she been wrong about who was sick, her brother was more plugged in than she was.

  “Why do you say that?” David asked Freddy, obviously unwilling to let go of the charade.

  “Your mouth sores. Your eyebrows. The way you’ve been walking,” Freddy said. “Should I go on?”

  “Is it true, Dad?” Elise said.

  “It’s true,” David said matter-of-factly. To Freddy, he asked, “How do you know all those things?”

  “I suppose that brings us to yet another family secret, which Mitch alluded to earlier. I’ve built a largish business in Colorado. I own marijuana farms and retail stores. Many of our customers are on chemo and the pot really helps ease the side effects. Dad—if you wanted—I could help you find the right strain.” He then turned to Mitch. “How did you know?”

  “It’s best we discuss that later,” Mitch said firmly and it seemed Freddy caught his meaning. Annette could hardly guess what there was left to say that couldn’t be said in present company.

  Before any further conversation could ensue, a lone waitress appeared with a trolley of desserts.

  “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” came an accented voice from behind a massive cheesecake with a triangular wedge missing. “Your cruise director, Mr. Julian, has asked me to bring you a selection of sweets since you are missing tonight’s feast. Can I offer anyone a piece of cake? Perhaps you like chocolate mousse?”

  All eyes gladly redirected their focus to the dessert cart, where the mousse, a glossy brown foam, jiggled in a gleaming silver bowl. Partially carved cakes, the shortest one ten inches tall, tempted in carrot, cheese, chocolate chip, raspberry truffle, and pistachio fluff. Descriptions were scrawled in neat handwriting on tented cards. Annette fantasized that if they each took something and focused on spooning bite after bite, then all the ugliness of the past half hour could dissolve as easily as the sugar on their tongues.