*
The only thing I really missed about Matt was his warm bulk, just lying next to him, like that thing when I felt his body lurch a little as he went from waking to sleep.
SEVEN
Justine and I lay stomach-down on lounge chairs alongside her pool, sweating in silence. Crows cawed. Bugs floated on the water’s surface. Below, a vacuum crept along the vinyl lining. The deck was dilapidated. Grass and dandelions grew from cracks in the asphalt. We drank vodka and Diet Coke. The vinyl chair straps dug into my thighs, making red stripes on my flesh like meat on a grill.
Justine stood up and stretched, bikini top hanging loose across her flat chest, ribs visible, the gap between her thighs impossibly wide. She curled her toes over the pool’s edge, swung her arms, shifted to the balls of her feet, and dove in. Justine shot across the water. She floated stomach-up, eyes closed, hair fanning. Her limbs drifted. Justine’s body was as smooth and white as a shell’s inside, like I could put my ear to her stomach and hear the Atlantic. I wanted to touch her ribs. I wanted to untie the strings at her neck, triangles floating away to reveal the flat nothing they covered. I wanted to be inside her body, drawing her knees and arms up, pushing them down against the water, propelling myself across the pool’s glittering surface.
When Justine climbed out, I stood and fell to one knee, drunk. She laughed and yanked me to standing. We leapt across the lawn. A sprinkler zapped at our calves.
Inside, her mother sat with a newspaper at the kitchen table. “You’re dripping everywhere,” she said, not looking up. Her voice was soft. She sounded far away.
Justine refilled our drinks. Her mother didn’t seem to mind that. Her glass was full too. I positioned my legs hip-width apart, trying to make that same space between my thighs.
“Are there calories in alcohol?” I asked.
“No.” Justine shook her head, pulling a pint of raspberry sorbet from the freezer.
We sat down with her mother. She’d been beautiful once, with that same wide protruding mouth, like she was wearing a retainer. She was faded now, removed, as though she sat behind a fogged-up window. My thighs spread across the woven seat, covered in goose bumps from the AC. Puddles formed on the tile beneath us. Justine and I ate straight from the container, sharing a single cold spoon. The sorbet was tart.
Upstairs, Justine knelt at the toilet on a nubby beige rug, stuck her fingers down her throat, and vomited without a sound. She held my right hand. My fingers were thick next to hers. Grandma had always said I had a man’s hands. Justine took nail clippers from the cabinet and cut down my pointer and middle fingernails, clippings falling to the bathroom floor. I knelt, and she took my hair in her hands. I put my fingers in my mouth and coughed.
“Stick them all the way back.”
I did what she said. I gagged and a load of pinkish-brown carbonated stuff came up: raspberry, liquor, cola.
“All of it.”
I tried again and vomited a well of browner, more acidic-tasting slime. It coated my hand. I rinsed it off. Justine handed me a bottle of Visine. I blinked the drops from my eyes. We toweled off, put clothes on over our swimsuits.
There was a book on Justine’s nightstand. It had a bright aqua cover. A thin girl with platinum hair in a shift dress and big cocktail rings lay flat on her back, daydreaming. The title was Edie: An American Biography. Her body stretched out around the spine and, when I flipped the book over, extended across the back cover, her white stick legs tapering into pointy silver flats. I paged through, looking at the pictures: a clipper ship, a mansion, toddlers in sailor suits, cute little drawings of what looked like field mice. Next: the New York City skyline, women with big hair dancing at a society ball, Andy Warhol with his arms wrapped around a man called Rod La Rod. And then I saw her in black dance tights arabesquing on a leather rhinoceros, arms spread, cigarette dangling from her hand, metal bracelet circling her tiny bicep, long chandelier earrings dangling down to her shoulders. She appeared to be in a living room: a floral-print divan scattered with pillows, the rhino acting as a makeshift coffee table, a big drawing of a horse on the wall behind her, the kind little girls are always supposed to be making. Her eyes were downcast in concentration, lined dramatically, like a cat.
Justine sat down next to me on the bed. She handed me an eyeliner pen and presented her long face to me, closing her eyes. I leaned in close. She tucked her hair behind her ear. The dull blonde wisps at her hairline looked vulnerable. There was a small colorless mole above her lip I’d never noticed before.
The late afternoon sun came in warm through her bedroom window. Her brow was irritated from tweezing. Her eyelid fluttered. I held my right hand with my left to steady the former, touching the liner to her lid. I felt her breath on my face and I held mine, pulling the felt tip, creating a black arc, the skin of her lid crinkling. I did the winged tip, drawing the line up toward the few light hairs at the end of her brow. I took her chin in my hand and did the other eye, so totally absorbed in the place where her lid met her lash that nothing else existed. I capped the pen. She winked like a baby doll when you shake it. She looked in the mirror, then back at me, smiling. I smiled back.
*
We were going to a Fourth of July party. Heading out, Justine almost fell down the stairs. She grabbed at the banister. At the car, she knocked back the contents of her glass and flung it onto the front lawn. In the car, her hair smelled like grapefruit. I hit a curb and heard a detached hubcap wheeling away after us.
The party was at the end of a peninsula in the richest part of Northport. Old beaters crowded North Creek Road; new cars lined the driveway: Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, Hummer. A red convertible was parked in front of the garage. The license plate holder read: “You call me a bitch like it’s a bad thing.”
The house was enormous and looked Mediterranean. Floods lit the grounds, trees glowed, an infinity pool stretched out toward the Long Island Sound, gleaming aquamarine. It was the most beautiful pool in the most beautiful backyard of the most beautiful house I’d ever seen.
We got red-and-blue Jell-O shots. They went down sweet, chemical, easy. I held Justine’s skinny wrist; she towed me through the crowd. A girl in big sunglasses nursed a Bartles & Jaymes. Her friend used the mirrored lenses to apply lip gloss.
“One in four guys on Long Island’s named Mike,” I overheard her say, “and half of them are assholes.”
Next to them, a boy lay passed out, a Mets cap perched on the most vulnerable stretch of his neck. Two guys in Loyola T-shirts tossed a can of Budweiser between lacrosse sticks. A bad throw and the can rolled down the thick green lawn, which reached all the way to the water, crowded with boats.
Girls stood around laughing, flipping flat-ironed hair. A boy did a keg stand. We hovered at the edge of a group dancing around the lit-up pool. There was one girl who stood out in the crowd, swaying her hips, hoop earrings swinging. I couldn’t stop looking at her. She was magnetic, and anyone who denied wanting her was lying. Then I realized I’d seen her before.
“Who’s that?” I asked Justine. It was her—the girl who’d come by the Stop & Shop: round face, cupid lip, hard brow.
“That’s my friend Nina,” Justine said. “This is her party.” She nodded at the sprawling villa. “That’s her house. You know the pizza place—”
“Nina’s?”
Justine nodded. “Her family’s.”
I loved Nina’s Pizza. The slices were just $1.50. They were huge and the crust was thin but flexible enough to fold in half without cracking. Grease pooled into that fold and could be poured right off the slice. The cheese was taut and reassuringly rubbery, the kind that didn’t slide or stretch. It stayed put. It registered detailed bite marks.
I smelled weed. Someone covered my eyes from behind. It was Chris—he took a hit from a joint, then passed it to Justine, turned on his video camera, and started recording. She took a hit and held the smoke, wrapped her long hand around the back of my neck, pulled my face to hers. She pressed her mouth to m
ine and blew. Her lips were soft. I wanted to kiss her, but more, I wanted to be her. I inhaled her exhaled breath, holding her close to me for an extra beat. I grabbed another Jell-O shot, then went to look for the bathroom, but I was really looking for Ryan.
Nina’s living room was like being inside a Louis Vuitton bag. A religious painting hung above a marble fireplace. Gold velvet drapes. Kids played quarters on an ornate coffee table. They looked funny in baggy T-shirts and jeans, slumped on gold-upholstered sofas. A woman in a halter top leaned over the table and picked up a shot glass with only her teeth. She flipped her head, long hair flying, and swallowed the contents hands-free. The skin at her chest was freckled. A crucifix hung between her crepey breasts. I figured she was Nina’s mother by the roundness of her head, the hardness of her brow. She saw me looking at her and pointed at a door just off the living room. Her fingers were covered in big diamond rings. The bathroom was locked.
“Upstairs,” she said, nodding toward an arched doorway that opened up to an octagonal foyer. I climbed the stairs and tried the first door at the top.
“One sec!” someone shouted.
Music came from the end of the hall—a heavy beat. I followed it and stood at the door. It was open just a crack.
I heard Ryan: “You must know this song.”
“You must know this song,” a girl with a raspy voice mocked him.
“Erik B. and Rakim, ‘Paid in Full,’ from the ’87 album Paid in Full, widely considered a touchstone album of golden age hip-hop. Rakim was the first rapper to use internal rhymes, raising the bar for lyricism in the genre and establishing a template for future—”
“Shut the fuck up,” the girl rasped, and his lecture was lost to the sounds of fabric rustling, lips interlocking. Shoes hit the floor. The bed creaked under their shifting weight. A sigh. I angled my head but was unable to see them through the narrow crack. I caught only the foot of a canopy bed, floor-to-ceiling windows that opened out to the sound. Something about it felt inevitable, like I’d wanted it to happen. Like I’d almost caused it.
I tipped the small plastic cup and the Jell-O shot fell to the plush cream-colored rug. A firework cracked. I used the bathroom. The liquid soap smelled like coconut.
*
Outside, everyone stood facing the sound for fireworks. I cut Florida from a cake shaped like the United States, chewed, and spit it into a napkin. I did another Jell-O shot. I saw Chris by the pool. Justine was passed out at his feet with an empty six-pack.
“She’s not supposed to drink on the medication,” Chris said.
Gold stars filled the sky. The water reflected stippled dahlias and willows. Bursts of light illuminated Justine’s face. I wished she could’ve seen it.
Chris helped me carry Justine to the car, laid her across the back seat, and returned to the party. On the ride back to her house, we didn’t speak. Fireworks popped and snapped. We drove past white mansions with black shutters, the Northport Yacht Club, where rich girls had their sweet sixteens and bat mitzvahs. We drove past Northport High School and Nina’s Pizza. As we bumped over the railroad tracks, it occurred to me that we lived on the wrong side.
Justine’s house was dark. I picked up her empty cocktail glass from the lawn, pulled her out of the back seat, and took her arm around my shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered. The liner had smudged. I walked her upstairs, tried to make her drink water. She took off her dress, dropped it to the floor, and fell onto the bed. She shifted to her side. She drew up her knees and closed her eyes.
I unbuttoned my shirt, slipped off my cutoffs, and lay down beside her. A breeze came in from the open window. I heard the occasional firework. Was she asleep? I turned to my side and tucked my knees, folding into Justine.
EIGHT
I hadn’t eaten all day, and was pleased to see I’d shed a half pound since morning. I penciled in a circle at July 6, 122, and made a line connecting the previous day’s dot to the new one. How encouraging it was to see it drawn out on the page like that, a clear descent.
Grandma was at the kitchen table paying bills, 1010 WINS on the radio. I slipped into her bedroom and unwired two of the crystal strands that dangled from the shade of her bedside table lamp. I hooked them into my little hoop earrings for makeshift shoulder dusters. I pulled on a pair of black opaque tights and clasped a silver bracelet around my upper arm. I back-combed my hair high on top and sprayed it in place with Grandma’s Aqua Net, fixing the rest into a tight bun at the back of my head. I hunched over a mirror at my desk, making my eyelids black with liquid liner. I couldn’t quite get the wings right; they were uneven. I had my mother’s eyes, Grandma always said. Marlena leapt onto my lap.
“My tights!” I swatted her to the floor.
She bolted out of the bedroom. I drew in a beauty mark somewhere between Justine’s and Edie’s, above the lip, to the left. I stood on the bed and held my best arabesque. My body felt light, like I was really high up, balancing on one foot over my whole life.
I sat down across from Grandma with my yogurt. Small sour apples hung from the tree out the window. The radio blared.
“One question,” a woman asked, enraged. “How do the administrators explain why they allowed a racist group to exist as an official club with a picture in the yearbook? Wake up and smell the swastikas!”
“Herren Gud.” Grandma turned the volume down. She used the cardboard backing of a legal pad and a letter opener to inscribe straight guides across an envelope, then carefully addressed it along the impressions.
“Grandma, Medicaid doesn’t care how you address it.”
“My writing’s no good.”
A man with a gravelly voice weighed in. “Police didn’t know who was a victim and who was a suspect? Here’s a clue: the victims were bleeding and the suspects had guns!”
“Juice?”
I shook my head.
She licked the envelope closed. “Today I have to clean the gutters.”
She picked up my yogurt. “Work, work, work.”
I tapped her veiny hand, smelled the Aspercreme. “I’m not done yet.”
“Well excuse me for living.”
“There’s still some left.”
“What do you think John will say under hypnosis today?”
“What?”
“Kate paid Nicole five million to marry Lucas. You think she’ll do it?” Oh, Days. “Hope is getting fat as a pig.”
I heard the pebbles in the driveway. Justine was late; it was after 2:00 p.m. She came in without knocking and plopped down between us at the head of the kitchen table, where Mom used to sit.
“Hi, Grandma,” she said.
Grandma?
“Hej.”
“Grandma, where are you from?” Justine asked. She picked up Grandma’s pen and twirled it between her fingers.
“Sverige,” Grandma declared.
“Sweden,” I said.
“Stockholm?” Justine asked. She flipped over the Medicaid envelope and started scribbling on it.
“Nej.” Grandma shook her head, frowning at the envelope. “The farm.”
I hit Justine’s hand to make her stop. “Småland,” I said.
“Like with cows?”
“Of course,” Grandma said, smiling. “They named me after the best cow.”
“They did not,” I said.
“You better believe it!” Grandma said.
“When did you come to this country?” Justine asked.
Grandma took her time answering, as if she were making a complicated calculation. Justine started scribbling again. I took the pen from her. She glared.
“1941,” Grandma said, definitively, “on the last boat.”
“How do you know it was the last boat?” I asked.
“Vad?” Grandma frowned. “Before the war.”
“You mean Pearl Harbor?” Justine rested her forearms on the table, long hands outstretched.
“Ja,” Grandma said, but she didn’t know what she was talking about.
“What did yo
u do when you got here?” Justine asked.
“I was a maid,” Grandma announced, proud. “For J. C. Penney.”
“Like the store?”
“The man.”
“Wait, what?” I asked.
“Naturligtvis!” Grandma said it like we were arguing. “On Park Avenue.”
“You never told me that,” I said.
“You never asked.”
“What was he like?” Justine interjected.
“Oh!” Grandma hooted. “He was a fresh old man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It doesn’t mean nothing,” Grandma replied with a sort of hauteur. “He gave me a recommendation.”
*
For some reason I was furious, thinking of Justine sitting there in Mom’s spot. On the way to Tower Records, she and I didn’t speak. She sang along with Morrissey, going on about being tied to the back of a car. We passed Loehmann’s, where I got my junior prom dress.
Chris was already there when we arrived, strolling down the hip-hop aisle. He kept looking up at his reflection in the mirror where the wall met the ceiling. Ryan wasn’t there. I meandered around in a way I hoped seemed inconspicuous.
On the news rack, a grid of women looked out from dozens of magazine covers. They asked: “What would you like?” smiling in tight pink sequined or floral dresses, hands on their hips, some of them in motion, this one just bending over to strap on a gold high-heeled sandal on her way out the door. She asked me to keep her company, offering all kinds of useful information on the way to the party: the secret to looking leaner naked, where to buy those gold sandals. She whispered into my ear the names of various pubic hairstyles: landing strip, Bermuda triangle, heart, arrow, postage stamp. I turned my head into the nape of her neck ever so slightly to better smell her perfume.
There was another rack at the back of Tower Records stocked with magazines featuring even more women wearing even less. They also asked: “What would you like?” but their solicitations weren’t for me.
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