Cobble Hill

by Cecily von Ziegesar

“I’ll get it, Daddy,” Shy Clarke shouted back.

  “It was nicer for me when I didn’t know you were faking it,” Stuart finally said. Fuck taking it slow. “Your MS. You don’t have MS. You never did.”

  Mandy sucked in her breath. Stuart knew. It sounded like he’d known for a while. She felt so stupid. But did he really have to be such a dick about it? If she’d gone to all the trouble to formulate such an elaborate lie, she must have been in a bad place to begin with. Where was his compassion?

  “I don’t know, maybe I’ve watched too many bad movies, but it made sense to me. I wanted to stay in bed, so I gave myself a reason to stay in bed.”

  “So you fucking lied to me about going to the doctor and all the vitamins you had to take? And what about the prescriptions; you faked those too?”

  “Yeah, I just put Midol and vitamin C in old prescription bottles,” Mandy admitted. “I did leave the house though. I got better. All those great meals I made?” She left out the part about the stolen food boxes. Maybe stealing was a side effect of lying. Anyway, she’d just paid for her very own Grandma’s House subscription. The first box was coming tonight.

  “But you lied. To me and Ted. And what about the pot? You kept telling me how much it was helping. Helping with what?” Stuart could hear his voice getting louder and louder but he couldn’t stop. A few people moved away from them and closer to the bonfire, which Roy was dousing with lighter fluid.

  “The more I think about it, the more I realize I just needed to,” Mandy said slowly. She and Stu had been together too long for her to get defensive and make up a whole bunch of reasons for pretending to be sick. “I don’t really know what else to say. I feel better knowing that you know, if that makes any sense. At first it was sort of fun, sneaking around, but then I just felt crazy.”

  “It is crazy. It’s fucking completely fucking crazy!” Stuart was yelling now.

  “Sorry to butt in, but are you guys okay?” Peaches listed over to them with a creepy smile on her face. She looked disheveled and drunk. Every time Stuart thought he was in love with her he realized Mandy was maybe fatter, but much hotter.

  Peaches could feel Greg watching them from the terrace. She’d been avoiding him since they arrived. He so desperately wanted her to introduce him to Stuart Little.

  “She knows,” Stuart growled. “I mean she knows I know.”

  “Uh-huh,” Peaches tossed her beer bottle into the still-unlit bonfire, smashing the glass. “So maybe it’s not such a big deal.”

  Mandy hated the irreverent, flirty, I-don’t-have-to-kiss-your-ass-because-I-know-you-have-a-crush-on-me way that Peaches always addressed Stu. It was so inappropriate. She was Ted’s school nurse. What was she trying to achieve anyway? It wasn’t passive aggressive, it was just aggressive. Peaches was a mind-fucker, but then again, so was she.

  “What’s not a big deal?” Wendy Clarke trilled, picking up fallen paper napkins and discarded glasses as she moved toward them. She obviously got off on being a hostess. She was in high gear.

  “Mandy doesn’t have MS,” Peaches explained flatly. “Sorry, Mandy, your husband told me a while ago. People come into the nurse’s office and they say things. It’s weird. It’s like I’m Lucy in the Peanuts cartoons, in my little shrink’s hut, waiting for people to unload their problems.” She tugged on the zipper of her leather jacket. “And their lice.”

  Stuart ran his fingers through his hair. He felt ganged-up on. This was supposed to be a big confrontation with his wife. He wished the other women would just butt out.

  “When I was in fifth grade, I told everyone I had a sister who was sick at home, just like in Little Women. I kept the lie up all the way through middle school,” Wendy said. She’d just remembered this.

  “We’re lighting it, Wendy. Is that all right?” Roy shouted from the other side of the garden. Tupper held a Zippo lighter beneath Guy’s feet.

  “I’ve never read any of my husband’s books. Not one. He has no idea,” Wendy blurted out. “Also, I got fired from my job and never told him.”

  Mandy giggled. “Wendy!”

  Wendy took Mandy’s beer and finished it. “That bonfire is never going to light. We need gasoline or something.”

  “Vodka,” Peaches said, and snorted.

  “Ted would love to light it,” Mandy said. It was such a relief having Wendy and Peaches there to diffuse the tension. Stuart was too distracted to be angry anymore.

  “Where is Ted?” he said.

  “You know, my husband, Greg, is dying to meet you,” Peaches told him disparagingly. “He’s a musician. He wants to make a kids’ album with you.”

  “Oh yeah?” Stuart wasn’t sure if he was just pretending to be interested or if he was actually interested. How could he make a kids’ album when his mind was so fucking full of fucking pissed-off expletives, bitch?

  “Here we go!”

  With a fiery whoosh the Guy burst into flames, crackling and burning thrillingly fast. The orange features of his face disappeared first, then his heavy blond wig, his shiny gray suit. Soon he was just blackened twigs hanging from a smoldering rope, and the picnic table, door, and chairs were alight.

  * * *

  “That was some Guy,” remarked a hairy man with a hideous orange-and-blue baseball tattoo on his neck. “Did you know that during the Great Fire of Rome, Nero just watched from a hilltop, singing and playing his lyre, like he was thrilled the whole damned shithouse was going up in flames?”

  The man was addressing her, Elizabeth realized. She inhaled and then exhaled slowly. She could do this. She could make chitchat with the natives.

  He swigged his beer. “I like your outfit.”

  Elizabeth was wearing her orange prison jumpsuit. “Thank you. I got it at Rikers.”

  “Neque fimina amissa pudicitia alia abnuerit. Tacitus. A woman after losing her virtue will hesitate at nothing.”

  Was he hitting on her? Elizabeth was at a loss.

  Tupper returned from stoking the fire and wound a skinny arm around her waist. “I keep hearing compliments about our Guy.”

  “You made that? Seriously?” the hairy man marveled. “So cool to be able to make stuff. I’m a Latin guy. I teach Latin.”

  Elizabeth ignored him. The fire had set her mind ablaze. Why had she never worked with fire? There were dormant volcanoes in Iceland. She could bring fire to them. It would be a huge project. She’d need helicopters. Except she wasn’t going to Iceland.

  “Remember Deus ex Machina at Bard?” Tupper said. “We went to a discount Christmas place and bought out every elf in the shop.”

  Elizabeth rested her long cheek on his bony shoulder. She didn’t have to go to Iceland alone. He could come with her. There was nothing keeping them in Cobble Hill. With his MacArthur money they could go anywhere.

  “What are we celebrating again?” Tupper heard someone ask as the fire crackled and roared.

  “That time when Big Ben almost got blown up but didn’t. It’s a big thing in England.”

  “This is way better than Halloween,” someone else said. “Except for that crazy trail of arms and legs someone did this year. That was fucking awesome.”

  “It’s definitely better than waiting on hold for two hours while Full Plate tries to figure out what’s been happening to our orders.”

  “Hey, our orders have been messed up too!”

  Above their heads, on the landing outside the kitchen, Roy Clarke banged a fork against a glass.

  “I just wanted to thank you for sharing this fun English tradition with us. If you have old shoes, useless children, or too-tight jumpers that need getting rid of, you are more than welcome to throw them into the fire. And please help yourselves to more food and drink. Wendy loathes leftovers. Thanks very much. Enjoy!”

  Roy descended the stairs and joined Tupper, Elizabeth, and the abominable Mr. Streko beside the fire. “I see you’ve met Shy’s Latin teacher.”

  “Salve,” Mr. Streko said and swigged his empty beer bottle uncomfor
tably.

  Roy had never been much of a bully, but he enjoyed making Mr. Streko nervous. It distracted him from the fact that Wendy was avoiding him. Roy was becoming all the things he hated tonight—a bully, an insecure husband, an overly confident host. Or maybe he’d always been all of those things and he was only just discovering it.

  “These two are brilliant artists,” he blathered on. “They created the Guy.”

  “Brilliant,” Mr. Streko agreed and shook his empty beer bottle. “Good thing you guys have five bathrooms. Hey, is that your weed I’m smelling?” he asked Elizabeth.

  * * *

  “So, we’re still friends, platonically speaking?” Shy didn’t mean to be pushy, but something about Liam brought out the pushy in her.

  “I guess.” Liam ripped up handfuls of grass and tossed them behind him.

  “Good.” Shy eased her butt off the ground and into his lap. She settled her shoulders against his chest. It wasn’t very platonic.

  Her Gucci sneakers were muddy and her black jeans were torn and frayed. Liam ran his thumb over her skin through one of the tears. “I’m sorry. I’ve been in a bad mood all weekend. My dog died. My family sucks. I didn’t want to drag you into it. Congratulations on the Ping-Pong tournament or whatever.”

  “Shhshh.”

  Liam stopped talking.

  “Volo enim vos eritis mihi in amans?”

  “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “That’s probably because I’m failing Latin now. I asked you to be my boyfriend.”

  Actually she’d asked him to be her concubine, because there was no word for “boyfriend” in Latin except amasiunculus, which sounded like a disease that made your penis fall off.

  Liam shifted his weight. Having Shy in his lap was almost impossible to endure bonerless. “I thought I already was.”

  “Okay, good.”

  Shy leaned back against him. Across the grassy area of the garden Mr. Streko was hungrily watching some guy who looked like he’d just stepped off a yacht in the South of France roll him a joint. She wasn’t in love with Mr. Streko anymore, she realized. She might still follow him on Twitter, and she might consider taking AP Latin with him next year, but Mum was right—his neck tattoo was gross.

  Liam rubbed his chin against her hair. He didn’t know why he’d been so bummed out. He was in an absurdly good mood now.

  * * *

  The party was crowded and boring. The big man-doll thing had melted too fast, and now the fire was boring too. Ted shoved an aerosol can of insect repellent into his sweatpants pockets, picked up his father’s abandoned skateboard, and walked down the little side alley that led out of the garden and onto the sidewalk.

  The streetlights were bright. He rode the skateboard down Strong Place and up Kane Street toward home. He turned on Cheever and tucked the skateboard under his arm. A blue-and-white checkered box from Grandma’s House was on his stoop. Cardboard was paper, so it probably burned.

  Crouching on the stoop beside the box, he sprayed a corner of it with insect repellent, flicked his lighter, and held it close. The box caught fire. It burned even better than he’d thought it would. The flames weren’t small and lame. They were tall and blue.

  Now the whole top of the box was on fire. The white label with his mom’s name on it turned black, curled off the box, and flew up into the air like a smoking bird.

  Something inside the box popped. “Pop, pop, pop!” It sounded like popcorn from the movie theater.

  Ted backed down the steps and sat on the bottom one. Was the whole box going to blow?

  Instead, the box seemed to implode. Little burning bits trailed up into the night sky, like fireflies. There was a lot of smoke.

  * * *

  “Holy shit.”

  Bruce Cardozo, master of the epic light-the-slide-on-fire-with-vodka trick, was riding his bike around the neighborhood. Nothing made him feel so free and independent and fully fucking alive as when he was on his bike in the dark, just cruising. Plus, it was nice to get away from his older sisters, who told him he smelled like dirty underwear and called him “the fat kid.” He stopped when he saw the smoke. The house was dark, lit up only by the glow of a single streetlight.

  “Hey, little kid. Get away from there. That house is burning.”

  “That’s my house,” the kid said. He pointed upstairs. “The label went into that window. It was on fire.”

  “Are your parents home?”

  The kid shook his head. “They’re at a party. There was supposed to be a huge bonfire, but I thought it was lame.”

  “Can you show me where they are?”

  The little kid shook his head no. Bruce straddled his bike, wondering what to do. There were actual flames coming out of the upstairs window now. The block was eerily quiet. The houses were all dark. There was no one around. They were probably all at the party. Bruce turned back to speak to the kid, but the kid wasn’t there. The front door of the house stood open. The little fucker had gone inside.

  * * *

  “Ladies.”

  The scent of warm cashmere permeated the air. Peaches looked up from where she, Wendy, and Mandy were huddled around the bonfire, drinking.

  “Dr. Conway!”

  The doctor looked even more perfect than usual in the firelight. His silver hair glistened. His teeth and skin were flawless.

  “Guys, this is Dr. Conway, aka Dr. Feelgood,” Peaches introduced him. “He’s the best.”

  The doctor had wonderfully soft hands. “And what kind of doctor are you exactly?” Wendy asked, already thinking she could do a feature on him for Enjoy!.

  “Actually, he’s more Mandy’s doctor than mine,” Peaches said. “Mandy’s the one with MS,” she clarified.

  “Except not really.” Mandy shook the doctor’s hand. He seemed more amused than anything.

  “And is there anything I can help you with right now?” he asked, his blue eyes twinkling.

  “Oh, you betcha.” Peaches backed away into the shadow of a rhododendron bush.

  “Anyone else?” the good doctor offered, following her.

  “Absofuckinglutely,” Mandy said, following right behind them.

  “Oh.” Wendy understood now that Dr. Conway wasn’t a medical doctor. “I probably shouldn’t—”

  She stole a glance at Roy, chatting with Tupper and Elizabeth on the other side of the bonfire. Someone had put on music—the Eagles. She loved the Eagles.

  “Wait for me!” she called, following her new friends.

  Chapter 24

  “Ted?” Stuart padded down the upstairs hallway. The Clarkes’ house was huge. Empty bedroom. Empty bathroom. Linen closet. Another bathroom. He came to a closed door and stopped. “Ted?” he called out again and opened the door.

  It was Roy Clarke’s daughter’s room. She was under the sheet with Peaches’ son. Clothes were piled on the floor beside the bed. Her Gucci sneakers had been kicked askance. A purple lava lamp cast a bacchanalian glow.

  “Sorry.”

  Shy giggled beneath the sheet. “Is he gone?”

  “Sorry.” Stuart backed into the hallway and closed the door.

  Peaches’ hat-wearing husband was alone in the living room thumbing through a shelf of vinyl records, a pair of noise-canceling headphones slung around his neck.

  “Hey, man,” Stuart greeted him. “Have you seen my kid?”

  “No. No, I haven’t.” Greg gestured at the record collection. “It’s impressive they own vinyl. Their sound system is amazing. But their taste in music is terrible.”

  Stuart walked over to examine the records. The Eagles. Elton John. Eric Clapton. Cat Stevens. Harry Chapin. The Beatles. “Eric Clapton’s cool.” He held out his hand for Greg to shake. “I’m Stuart. We haven’t officially met yet. You’re Peaches’ husband.”

  Greg nodded, unsure whether to punch the guy or shake his hand.

  “Yeah. Greg Park.” He shook Stuart’s hand. He was not going to pass up this chance. “So hey, I’ve been so
rt of aware of your career and like, the fact that we’re practically neighbors and I was wondering. I’ve written a bunch of kids’ songs? But I kind of need, like, a collaborator.”

  Peaches had already warned him, so Stuart was not surprised. “That’s cool.”

  “I want it to be very cool, you know, not boring,” Greg went on excitedly. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his curly, graying hair. “I want to sort of reinvent the kids’ album. I want it to sound like, I don’t know, Jimi Hendrix and Woody Guthrie meet like, the Clash, meet like, the Blind Mice,” he added with a smile.

  Stuart sat down on the arm of a sofa. “Wow. Okay. Do you play an instrument?”

  Greg grinned giddily. “Sure. I’m a music teacher. I play everything.”

  * * *

  “Fire!” Bruce shouted, circling blocks on his bike.

  Where the fuck were the parents of that sicko fucking idiot kid?

  “Fire!”

  * * *

  “I’m against it, usually.” Wendy took another hit on Mandy’s nifty little steam-pipe and blew out a tremendous stream of skunky vapor. “I mean, how will the trains run on time? How will FedEx deliver the next day? How will doctors finish medical school and transplant lungs, if everyone is high?”

  She passed the pipe to Peaches, aware of the fact that she was repeating herself but unsure now with whom she’d broached this topic before.

  Peaches handed Dr. Conway the pipe. He took a quick hit and handed it back. He seemed like he’d had a lot of practice.

  “I haven’t smoked this stuff since college,” Peaches said, taking another hit. “It’s smoother now, seems like.”

  “I’m glad you like it, it’s—” Dr. Conway began.

  “I feel weird,” Mandy said, cutting him off. She sounded anxious. “This is different from what we got before.”

  “It is,” Dr. Conway said. His voice was velvety and smooth. “It’s the party version.”