The Floating Feldmans

by Elyssa Friedland

  “I don’t think bugs can live on the open water. Like, I don’t think mosquitoes would be on the boat.” He’d heard that once. Maybe in biology class, when everyone thought he wasn’t listening. “Do you itch anywhere?”

  “I itch everywhere. Since the cruise director made that announcement my entire body feels like one giant bug bite.”

  Freddy knew that was psychosomatic, but he didn’t want to delegitimize anything Natasha was saying, especially seeing her curled in the fetal position looking like an extra in a horror movie.

  “Do you think you can stand up? I can wash you off and help you into bed.” Freddy reached out a hand to her and she took it. Feebly, she stepped out of her nightgown and he ran the water in the shower until it felt just right. Realizing there was no way he could clean her without getting himself soaked, he pulled off his boxers and went inside the stall with her. It was quite a bit different from the last time they’d showered together, just a few days earlier, when they missed the safety briefing. Well, that was okay, he thought, as he squeezed shampoo from the mini bottle and worked it into a lather in Natasha’s hair. A real relationship wasn’t just sex and making other guys jealous, it was wiping away vomit and reassuring the other person that they didn’t have whatever the hell that bizarre virus was.

  After he was satisfied that her hair was clean, he took the bar of soap from the tray and massaged it over her skin, starting with her shoulders and working his way down to her toes. It recalled the times when his mother dipped a washcloth into an ice bath to cool his body when he had a fever.

  Color was returning to Natasha’s cheeks, possibly from the hot water, but either way she was looking more like herself. Freddy turned the water off and wrapped her in a fluffy towel. This was quite the role reversal. Normally Natasha took care of him. She tenderly unknotted his neck when he talked about business and counseled him about how to manage his family. She was the one who told him to have a publicist present for the High Times interview, advice he’d regrettably ignored.

  “Let’s put you in bed. I bet you’ll fall back asleep and hopefully that was the worst of it,” he said.

  Natasha nodded as he patted her dry and slipped one of his baggy T-shirts over her head. He squeezed the wetness from her hair and gathered it into a bun, reaching for one of the hair elastics that were lying all over their cabin, much like they were in his condo in Aspen. Their condo. He lifted the covers and Natasha collapsed onto the bed. With a weak hand, she gestured toward the phone on the bedside table. The message light was on.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll listen to it. You just rest.”

  She needed no extra prodding and within minutes her breathing took on the soft, even rhythm of sleep. Freddy dialed in for the messages.

  “Hi, Freddy, it’s Mom. Last full day on the boat and I was hoping we could all meet after lunch in the Starboard Ballroom for the game show this afternoon. Um, thanks, ’bye.”

  His mother’s voice tremored like a mild earthquake. She was trying to right the ship before they all went their different ways tomorrow. Freddy climbed into bed next to Natasha with his iPad, planning to look up that cockamamie mosquito illness she had mentioned, but first he went back to read the High Times article again.

  Now that the cat was out of the bag, it was only a matter of time before every member of his family Googled him, and he wanted to prepare a fulsome defense. There were a lot of Frederick Feldmans in the world, but not quite so many would pop up when you added “marijuana” and “millionaire” to the search string. He still wasn’t sure how Mitch had discovered the article. Freddy wasn’t angry with his brother-in-law, just confused. His livelihood wasn’t a secret per se. He read through the introductory paragraphs, which gave the gestalt picture. Maybe his family would stop there, too stunned to read on. But no, of course they wouldn’t. They would read every damn word, as he would do if the situation were reversed. Chewing on his bottom lip, he continued reading the article, feeling his stomach rolling as he approached the parts about his family.

  But they were gone! Lifted from the article as if they’d been written in disappearing ink. Freddy waited to rejoice, fearing the editor had simply rejiggered the piece, moving the part about his family to the end. But he got through the entire article with bated breath and there was no mention of his parents or his sister. He wanted to shake Natasha awake to tell her. Maybe she’d had something to do with the disappearance of his damning words. But no, she would have told him, knowing how upset he was last night when he went to sleep. It was a mystery.

  He looked back at his girlfriend, sleeping peacefully. Her cheeks retained their flush and her body was cool to the touch, so he felt comfortable leaving her alone in the room for a few minutes. There were people he needed to see.

  * * *

  —

  “Uncle Freddy,” Rachel said, answering the door with a bag of chips in one hand and a crumpled tissue in the other. It looked like she had been crying.

  “Hi, Rach. I wanted to check if you were doing okay. I’m guessing not,” he said, gesturing toward her eyes.

  “It’s Austin, the guy I’ve been seeing. He waited until I was on the cruise to send me a ‘Let’s not rush things’ email that doesn’t quite tell me we’re finished but also gives me, like, zero confidence that we have a future together.”

  “You’re in purgatory,” Freddy said, draping an arm around Rachel’s back. He pictured Natasha suddenly, curled up in bed, wondering if she ever felt that way about him. She never asked to have “the talk,” nor did she drop hints about wanting to get more serious—at least none that were overt enough for an obtuse guy like him to pick up on. But he couldn’t imagine she enjoyed their amorphous status. Yes, they had moved in together, but Freddy still never called if he was going out for a boys’ night nor did they celebrate anniversaries in the manner of people moving toward a particular destination.

  “Guys suck,” Freddy said and Rachel acquiesced by propping her head on his shoulder. “How you feeling about the stuff with your parents? I was upset to hear about your mom. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for you and Darius.”

  “Yeah. I feel worse for Darius because this could really screw him for college. But in a way, I’m also relieved. Mom had been acting weird all summer and I thought maybe it was just me being paranoid about what I was hiding, but deep down I guess I knew something was off. One night I saw her sniffing Darius’s pillow, like he was dead or something. I think she’s pretty whacked.”

  An unexpected emptiness welled inside Freddy. As much as he felt sorry for his sister, there was a pang of envy as well. If Natasha were to leave him, he’d be crushed, but would he open up her shampoo bottles to breathe in her familiar scent? Probably not. That was the behavior of a lovesick teenager. And, apparently, of a parent.

  “I’m going to try to talk to your parents about going easy on you with the police bit and secretly visiting me. I’ll tell them I invited you to come. As for the arrest, maybe we’ll concoct something about it being a sorority dare.”

  “But I’m not in a sorority,” Rachel said earnestly.

  “Well, of course not,” Freddy said in a drawn-out, dramatic tone. “You would never have thought to follow through with rushing a sorority after you saw the unsafe and silly antics they were putting you up to.” Freddy gave her a wink. He had so much more practice than his niece in such machinations.

  Darius surprised them both by bounding into the room wearing a goofy grin.

  “Oh, hey,” Darius said. “I didn’t know anyone was in here. I was going to work a little on my essay before we have to go to the game show thing.”

  “You seem awfully happy about writing,” Freddy said. “At least that’ll cheer your mom and dad up.”

  “What? Uh, no. I’m not. I mean, I had a good idea. Someone gave me a good idea. It doesn’t matter,” Darius stammered.

  Freddy exchanged
looks with Rachel. He took in Darius, floppy hair draped over his eyes, hands jammed into the pockets of his oversized sweatshirt, that blank but kind expression he always wore on his face. Freddy knew what he needed to do, or rather, he realized what he very much wanted to do.

  “See you both later. I need to check on Natasha. She wasn’t feeling well earlier.” He kissed Rachel on the top of her head and offered up his fist for Darius to bump. “I need to talk to you later, buddy.”

  Natasha was sitting up in bed when he reentered, scrolling through her phone.

  “I feel so much better,” she said the minute he shut the door behind him.

  “That’s a relief. No Fermentalism, then, I guess.”

  “It’s Fermentalisminutia. And no, it seems I’ve been spared. I listened to your mom’s message about the game show. I can go for sure.”

  Freddy sat down next to Natasha on the bed and took the phone out of her hands. Her cell phone obsession was one way in which their age difference could not be ignored.

  “I’ve been thinking about Darius’s college. I’m going to offer to pay for it. And I’m going to lend Elise and Mitch whatever they need to pay off their debts. And I’m going to help my parents too. It sounds like Dad’s medical bills are out of control.”

  He looked at Natasha, waiting for her to throw her arms around him, oh-my-hero-style. Instead she got up from the bed and pulled a water from the minifridge.

  “You know, Freddy, it won’t be that simple to swoop in and fix everything.” She took a few sips. “Your family is still adjusting to all this new information. For years they thought you were the black sheep, as you say, and now they find out you’re a highly successful businessman. Even though it’s good news—”

  Freddy felt himself stiffening. He heard the air quotes around the “good news.”

  “—it’s going to take them some time to process. Your sister has thought for the past thirty years that she was the one who had her stuff together and you were some clown without two nickels to rub together. Now she’s in trouble and you’re going to be everyone’s savior. Your parents are going to have to grapple with the fact that you kept all this from them for a long time, not to mention that parents are supposed to provide for their children and not the other way around. I just don’t want you to be disappointed when you go all Daddy Warbucks on them and they aren’t jumping for joy. And that’s without us even getting into the source of your wealth.”

  Freddy looked at Natasha incredulously. She’d certainly regained her strength. He might have preferred it when she was vomiting in the toilet and needed his assistance to stand upright. Still he had a nagging feeling she might be right. But what about satisfying his own impulses? For the first time since amassing a fortune, he had a clear direction of what he wanted to do with the money.

  “Just don’t go out guns blazing. That’s all I’m saying. It’s wonderful that you want to help. But nothing is as straightforward as it seems; meaning, helping others is also a way to help yourself. And that won’t be lost on anyone either.”

  He avoided looking at Natasha. Surely she hadn’t forgotten what he’d said before they departed for the trip. That he wanted to be damn sure that every single Feldman and Connelly realized he had left Freddy the Fuckup in the dust. But that had been anger and insecurity talking. Now things were different. His motivations were pure. He was as certain of that as he was that his father should really try his Blackberry Kush for his aches and his White Stripe to regain his appetite. Freddy had seen the way his father had pushed around the food on his plate all week like a child avoiding the Brussels sprouts. His best budtender, Richie, famous from Vail to Denver, could roll a superjoint that would pack a one-two punch for his father.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Freddy said, because suddenly he didn’t have the strength to debate something to which he’d already set his mind. He would speak to everyone in his family tonight, the last night of the trip and his mother’s actual birthday. It was kismet that the excursions had been canceled.

  * * *

  —

  Freddy and Natasha walked into the Starboard Ballroom at precisely five minutes to three, expecting to find a few scattered families waiting to play the silly game show. Instead, the ballroom was jam-packed with competing clans strategizing in football huddles.

  “There’s your mom,” Natasha said, pointing to Annette in the far corner of the room. Next to her, David was reclined in a chair with a rolled-up magazine in his hand, impervious to the competitive spirit flowing through the air vents. Freddy couldn’t blame his father. It was rather hard to imagine the Feldmans having a fighting chance at “How Well Do You Know Your Family?”

  They made their way over. Up close, he saw a single bandage across David’s nose. Freddy offered his mother a kiss on the cheek and surprised his father with a hug. He was in charge now, the mature son who had been the only one of the three grown men in their group not to have been involved in the previous night’s bar fight.

  Next arrived Darius and Rachel, looking chummier than he’d ever seen them. Rachel seemed to have pulled herself together and Darius had the self-satisfied air of someone who’d finally gotten lucky. They plopped down on chairs next to their grandparents and Rachel asked how her grandfather was feeling. Freddy could see the annoyance spread across David’s face. This was clearly what he’d been hoping to avoid. Having everyone fawn all over him, making him feel like the patient instead of the doctor.

  A moment later Elise and Mitch trickled in. They appeared to be speaking to each other, which was a relief. Elise was wearing a baseball cap to cover up the wreckage from the hair flambé. Freddy zeroed in on Mitch. There was something forced about his brother-in-law’s gait. His right arm was swinging freely but his left was stiff. His dad must have really given Mitch a good slugging. Freddy was impressed.

  He watched Mitch and David eyeball each other sideways and then both of them mustered a grumbled apology simultaneously. His father said something about the side effects of his medication and Mitch muttered an excuse about his nerves, and it seemed enough to momentarily pacify the both of them. Freddy was fairly certain there was no long-standing animus between those two. Everyone loved Mitch. He had the personality of a Little League coach. And instead of feeling jealous that Mitch possessed that je ne sais quoi, good-guy quality, Freddy was filled with a feeling of contentedness. His sister needed a guy like that. She deserved it.

  Annette reached into her bag and pulled out muffins wrapped in paper napkins.

  “From the breakfast buffet. I have two blueberry, three banana bran, and one chocolate chip. Any takers? I figured you’d want to have a little snack at this time of day.”

  “Grandma, there’s a massive table with food set up in the back,” Rachel said, cuing up her infamous eye roll. “Besides, those muffins probably have, like, eight hundred calories each.”

  Freddy leaned over to whisper in Rachel’s ear: “He’s not worth the dieting, Rach.”

  She grabbed the single chocolate chip muffin and took a huge, obviously pleasurable bite.

  “All right, families,” boomed the cruise director from the stage, where a surprisingly realistic game show set had been erected. “Welcome to ‘How Well Do You Know Your Family?’ which I promise will be more entertaining than dolphin watching or scuba diving on St. Lucia. To get you all warmed up, we’re going to start off with a few lightning rounds of ‘Family Feud,’ which I’m sure you’re all familiar with. You have received schedules indicating when your family will be called up to play. The winning clan will take home a whopping thousand-dollar gift certificate to be used toward any Paradise International cruise taken within the next year.”

  The crowd burst out in applause while Mitch said, “Is that for the winner or the loser?” Elise shushed him while suppressing a grin.

  “And for a special surprise, something I’ve never done before, I will be competing in the
game as well with my family. I’d like everyone to give a wave to the handsome guy up front looking painfully embarrassed right now. Say, ‘Hi, Roger,’ everyone.” The crowd obeyed, echoing, “Hi, Roger” in the half-asleep tones of children greeting a teacher at arrival in the morning. “And since we’re a family of two and you all look way too fierce for us to face alone, I’ve asked my assistant, Lindsay, and the boat captain to round out our team. Let’s hope we don’t hit any rough waters for the next hour because I am not letting Captain John leave until we’ve had our turn.”

  “We’re up in the third round,” Annette said. “Who wants to go first for our team?”

  Freddy put up his hand.

  “All right, Freddy it is.” His mother wrote down his name and then numbered the rest of them. Natasha was listed last, but at least she was included.

  They sat around the table picking at muffins while Julian announced the first category: Places You Are Most Likely to Fart. The cruise was so terribly lowbrow that it was almost campy cool, like a horror movie with such gruesome effects that you find yourself laughing. Two families took the stage and made their best guesses: in bed, in the shower, on an airplane.

  “I’d say the car,” Freddy said, turning to Natasha. “Tash! Are you okay?”

  His girlfriend had her head dropped between her knees and was throwing up again. When she looked up, her bottom lip was quivering.

  “I’ll get napkins. Stay put,” Freddy stammered. “Dad, you need to help Natasha. She threw up this morning and we thought she was doing better. She’s worried she has that mosquito virus.”

  David sprang into action, rising from his chair and touching the back of his hand to Natasha’s forehead.

  “Forget the napkins. Darius—go run in the kitchen and ask for a dish towel and wet it with ice water. We need to cool her off and get her to your cabin without anyone noticing she’s sick.”