The New City

by Stephen Amidon

  “Susan?”

  She opened her eyes to the sight of Irma standing in the changing room door, wearing some lavender monstrosity. Susan had known the dress was a disaster when her mom snatched it off the rack but had no idea it would be quite this bad. Layer upon layer of purplish chiffon, looking like they had been pasted together by monkeys. And what was that with the neck? It looked like a two-year-old’s bib.

  “Well?”

  “Looks great, Ma.”

  Irma touched her collarbone.

  “Really? It’s not funny here?”

  Before Susan could answer, one of the old bats arrived, nodding neutrally, waiting to hear how the conversation was going.

  “I was just asking my daughter if this neck was all right.”

  The assistant looked at Susan. The woman clearly knew the dress was hideous. But she didn’t want to contradict anyone. She got the same percent commission for selling ugly dresses as she did for the good stuff.

  “I told her it looked terrific,” Susan said. “With her coloring?”

  “Oh, yes,” the assistant said. “It highlights your cheekbones.”

  As if that was an issue, Susan thought. Irma’s cheekbones would only look good inside a burlap sack. These people will say anything.

  “Then I buy it?” Irma asked in her worst cigarette voice.

  Susan hesitated, then nodded. All of a sudden, she wasn’t that sure this was so funny. Getting invited to Mr. Swope’s birthday party meant a lot to her folks. Especially her dad. But before she could think of a way out of it the deal was done. Her mother performed a quick once-over of herself in the triple mirror, then vanished back into the dressing room. The assistant retreated, not daring to look in Susan’s direction.

  As her mother undressed Susan started to feel really guilty. Sure, Irma had been a bitch for stopping her from spending the day in D.C. But she was still her mom. Making her embarrass herself in public was cruel. Hanging out with the Swopes was a dream come true. And her dad, who was looking for a new job with Teddy’s father—how would he feel when people started laughing at his wife? Sabotaging their shot at the big time would be too cold-blooded. She’d have plenty more chances to be with Joel. Her folks, on the other hand, were running out of time. And her mother had looked so trusting standing there. So vulnerable. No, she couldn’t let her do this. Susan unwrapped her long legs from beneath her and walked over to the changing room door, her sandals whispering on the new carpet. She knocked gently.

  “Mom?”

  Chiffon rustled for a moment and then the door opened. Irma held the dress to her chest. Her bra straps dug into the creamy flesh of her shoulders. A vague odor of sweat mixed with her Charlie. That vulnerable sheen was gone from her powder-blue eyes, replaced by their usual cool wariness.

  “I was thinking—maybe we could find something better.”

  “Better?”

  “You know. A little less …”

  Susan couldn’t think of the right word. Irma’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “But you said you liked it.”

  “I know.”

  Irma smelled a rat.

  “Why would you say you liked it if you didn’t? No, this I do not understand.”

  “I just …”

  Irma continued to stare suspiciously at her. Susan knew exactly what she was thinking. That her daughter was trying to talk her out of buying a nice dress. To wreck things for her. To get revenge.

  “No,” Irma said eventually. “I buy this one.”

  Susan shrugged. She’d tried.

  “Okay,” she said. “It’s your party.”

  There were only a few diners at the food court. Store workers on break. Two well-dressed Mystic Hills women, surrounded by mounds of bags. Susan and her mom stood in silence before the counters, trying to choose. Tia Taco. Vesuvius Pizza. Nathan’s. Orange Julius. Peking Palace. Kids with bad skin and paper hats watched them. Susan recognized some of them from school but didn’t say hello. She never acknowledged anybody when she was with her mom.

  “Chinese?” Irma suggested.

  “Sure.”

  Irma got the Number Three special. Susan ordered something else. They took their trays to a table at the mezzanine’s edge. It had a view of the escalators and the big fountain. Shapes of light fell from the big skylights into the fountain’s chemically blue water. They reminded Susan of the stuff they expected her to learn in geometry. Cosines and acute angles. Yeah, right. If Joel hadn’t helped her she’d have flunked for sure. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t going back to school in the fall. She was going to Lewisburg to start living her life.

  “So, that’s done,” Irma said, her voice fake-nice, as if that last exchange back at Newton Casuals hadn’t happened.

  Susan decided to give decency one more try.

  “Are you going to get Dad something new?”

  “I was thinking about him wearing his red trousers and that checked coat.”

  Good God, Susan thought, picturing them side by side in those nightmare ensembles.

  “You’ll look nice.”

  “Yes, well, I hope something comes of the party. Or else we have big problems.”

  “Come on,” Susan said. “Dad’ll find something.”

  The angles of Irma’s eyebrows grew even more acute.

  “With his hand all rotten like it is? And losing the war? I don’t think so.”

  “He didn’t lose the war, Mom.”

  “He didn’t win it, darling.”

  Susan looked at her mother’s half-consumed meal. The egg roll’s insides had spewed out like the innards of roadkill; the lo mein stuck together like tufts of wet hair. Whatever vague plans she’d had about eating her food vanished completely.

  “You know,” Irma continued. “If you were going out with that nice Teddy, then Mr. Swope would be a lot more likely to help your father out.”

  “Going out with Teddy? Are you for real?”

  “Why, what’s wrong with him?”

  “Only everything.”

  “Well, at least you could get Joel to talk to Teddy and see if he’ll mention us to his father. If it’s not too much trouble.”

  Typical Irma—being nasty while asking a favor. Susan was tempted to tell her no but then she realized that would only be hurting her father. And she could never do that. Ever.

  “Sure,” she said. “Though it’s sort of hard to ask Joel to do you a fave if I’m not allowed to see him.”

  Irma and Susan met each other’s eyes. A bargain was struck. Irma smiled sweetly.

  “I never said you weren’t allowed to see Joel, dear. I said you couldn’t go to Washington with him.”

  Susan smiled back at her mother. She most definitely had banned them from seeing each other for a week. Round two to me, she thought.

  “I must have misunderstood you. Sorry.”

  Irma shrugged and then pointed at Susan’s plate.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  “Not hungry.”

  “At least have your cookie.”

  Susan plucked the fortune cookie from the edge of the Styrofoam plate and snapped it in half. It took her a moment to find the scrolled paper, lodged deep in the cavity at one end of the shell. It was blank. Both sides. Weird. Must have been a bad day at the fortune cookie factory.

  “What does it say?” Irma asked, having broken hers as well.

  “True love will prevail. How about yours?”

  Irma read for a moment, then turned it over. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Susan crumpled the two pieces of paper and tossed them on her untouched food. Mother and daughter sat in silence after that, munching their cookies.

  At home, Susan tried calling Joel, but his mom said he’d gone out with Teddy. She felt a pulse of peeved jealousy. It wasn’t fair. This was supposed to be her day with Joel. She very nicely asked Mrs. Wooten to have Joel call when he got in, then locked herself in her room. Her mother knocked after a few minutes and asked if she wanted to practice bridge, bu
t Susan wasn’t in the mood to watch her pound the schnapps. Instead, she put on Carole King’s Tapestry and stretched out in bed, snuggling the big koala her dad had brought her from Australia. She sometimes missed having him arrive after some long flight with another stuffed animal for her collection. Each new one seemed bigger and more exotic. She used to love the way he would feel when he hugged her after arriving. His arms so strong. Strange, spicy smells rising from his clothes and hair. His expression confident and happy, unlike the cowed look he carried around these days. But that was wrong, missing that. Because the only reason her father went to cool places like Sydney or Bangkok was because he had to be in the place whose name she would never again mention. And she never wanted him to go back there. Not after what it did to him, making him so tired and scared.

  Think better thoughts, she told herself. Imagine being at April’s pad with Joel. April had lived in the same compound as them at Meade. Though ten years separated them, Susan used to spend a lot of time at her apartment, talking trash and putting on nail polish. Listening to music. They both had long hair so they’d spend hours combing it. April’s husband, Geoff, was a gunnery corporal who’d gone off to the war and got killed when a shell misfired. Luckily they didn’t have any kids. That’s what everyone said, anyway. Though Susan could hardly see luck in the situation. After that, April got real mad at the army and moved down to this hippie pad on Dupont. So now, when Susan and Joel wanted to be alone, they had a place to go where the only grown-ups around seemed younger than them.

  Susan thought back to the last time they were there, just before school got out. They ran this great scam. April had called Irma to invite Susan down for the day, making it seem totally innocent. The best thing was that April wasn’t even staying in town—she’d gone off to be with some freaks in Virginia. They’d spent all day there. Balling every hour. Walking around naked. Calling out for pizza and almost forgetting to put on their clothes when the delivery guy showed. It was so great. Like they were married. Only better than married, because there wasn’t all the stuff that made parents miserable. Today was supposed to have been a repeat. April had once again offered to clear out. Only Irma was on her toes this time, giving her the third degree. And stupid April had finally spilled the beans about Joel coming. Though Susan couldn’t really blame her friend. When Irma wanted to know something, she was like the Gestapo.

  So she and her mother had it out that morning after her father left for work. They’d screamed at each other for almost an hour. Irma said Susan couldn’t see Joel for a week because of it. Then she started to blubber when Susan said she’d rather be skinned alive than help her pick out a new dress for Swope’s party. In the end, Susan wound up going just to shut her mother up. She was glad she had. Now that Irma wanted Joel to do her a favor there was no way she could keep them apart. Though Susan decided not to ask him to speak to Teddy just yet. She wanted to milk this thing. It wasn’t beyond Irma to wait until Swope gave her father a new job and then go ahead and split her and Joel up anyway.

  Not that it really mattered what she did. The days of Queen Irma were definitely numbered. Because, come September, Susan and Joel were out of here. In just over two months they would be living together in Lewisburg, a million miles away from her mother’s whims. They had it all planned. Though Joel already had a dorm room rented out for his first year, Susan would still get a place somewhere near the campus where they could be together. She’d already saved up eight hundred bucks. And she could easily get a job waitressing, especially in a college town. That was one of the advantages of looking like she did. Greasy men always wanted to give her jobs. She could work while Joel went to classes. In the evenings they could do the stuff college kids did. And at night it would be like at April’s. Only with no deadlines or curfews. Her mother would freak but there was nothing she could do. By the time she got the cops on it Susan would be eighteen. She never thought she’d be grateful for having to stay back in seventh grade. It would be perfect. Joel would be on his way to becoming a man every bit as great as his father. Only without all the hard times. And she would be right there with him. She could maybe even start to have babies, though that would be tough with no money. Besides, there was plenty of time for that. She wanted five. They’d have caramel skin and Mrs. Wooten’s green eyes and her father’s strong chin and Mr. Wooten’s rolling laugh. And, okay, her mom’s blond hair. They would look so beautiful. Four boys and a girl. The girl would be the youngest. Brandy, like the song. Her brothers would all look after her. The first two boys would be called Earl and John. There’d be time to think of what to name the other two later. Susan would read every book there was so she would be a good enough mother to not make the same mistakes as Irma.

  There was one other good thing about going to Lewisburg. No Teddy. He’d be off at Harvard being an evil genius. There would be no more of his sarcastic remarks or his dumb novel or that awful Yoko music. No more of those stupid drugs he gave Joel that made him ignore her. No more having to sit in the back of his fucking Firebird, going wherever he wanted to go. Once they had a place of their own Teddy would realize that he wasn’t the boss anymore. If he wanted to come visit he’d have to ask nicely. And then she’d probably say no anyway. Well, some of the time. She’d finally have the man she loved all to herself. All she had to do was keep it together for the rest of the summer. Just two more months and they’d be free. Last night’s riot and this morning’s fight with Irma showed just how hazardous this city could be to the cause of true love.

  The phone rang. Susan went to her door to listen. She could tell by the bitterness in her mother’s voice that it was her dad. A word drifted up the stairs. Panther. God, how she hated her mother some times. She fell back onto her bed, thinking of the tone Irma used with her father these days. It was so unfair of her to treat him like she did. After all, it wasn’t like he was one of those creeps back at Meade who’d come home from the war with a jar full of ears and photo albums nobody was allowed to see. Her father was never mean and never drunk and he worked just as hard as Teddy’s or Joel’s dad. It wasn’t his fault if they made him go fight that stupid war and then threw him out of the army because of his hand. Irma should stand by him. Adversity was the test of real love. Susan had read that somewhere. A magazine. Or maybe in English class. She’d never get that way with Joel. No matter what happened, she’d stick by him. She’d already proven she could, when those jerks called them Tom and nigger lover. She would never let him down like her mother did her father. Never.

  She reached out and grabbed another of her animals. It was the white tiger her dad had brought from Tokyo. Her favorite. She closed her eyes and held it close, imagining it was Joel. Thinking what it would be like to be with him every night in a place far away from this stupid city.

  6

  Susan was trying to dunk Joel. She leapt at him after he’d splashed water in her face, her pretty features twisted with bogus anger. Joel twirled away at the last moment, forcing her to land on his naked back. She placed her hands on his shoulders and tried to shove him down. He resisted, causing her to rise as gracefully as Olga Korbut. Her breasts shrugged against her bikini top and her legs scissored through the surface. Just as she’d risen as high as her rigid arms would take her Joel buckled his legs, pitching them both forward. Susan’s scream was choked silent as she shot over him and belly flopped into the water. Joel grabbed her braceleted ankle and reeled her in, then went under himself. They stayed below for five seconds—writhing, entwined, bubbles roiling up from them.

  Teddy watched from his chair, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain splayed over the straining zipper of his jeans. When they surfaced Susan was really pissed. She’d been under too long. She’d swallowed water. Susan hated going under. Joel moved close to comfort her, easily parrying a lame slap she threw at his shoulder. He said a few things. She pouted and he spoke again, placing a gentle hand against her cheek. She finally smiled and they began to kiss. Deep frenches, right there in the middle of the
pool. Teddy’s book rose a centimeter on his lap. This was amazing. It looked like they were about to get it on right here at the Fogwood Recreation Center. Although it had been just six short days since they’d cowered together during the teen center riot, they seemed to have forgotten how crazy they could make people.

  A sharp shriek sounded from the far deck. It was the lifeguard, staring critically at Joel and Susan over a nose frosted with zinc oxide. He shook his head, gesturing to the mothers and children spread around the pool.

  They broke apart. Joel waded over to the side, just below Teddy’s deck chair. Susan stayed where she was, wringing water from her long blond hair.

  “You comin’ in?” Joel asked.

  “I’m cool,” Teddy said.

  Joel laughed quietly.

  “That is one thing you most definitely are not.”

  He lifted himself out of the pool, balancing on its guttered edge. He brushed out the multitude of drops that clung to his matted-down ’fro, then teased it up with his fingertips. The spindly black hairs on his calves had been flattened by the water—they looked like something you’d see under a microscope. The label stuck up from the back of his swimsuit like a lolling white tongue.

  “Gettin’ hot,” he said, squinting up at the midday sun.

  “Summer.”

  Joel located his stupid leather visor on the edge of his chair and put it on. God how Teddy hated that thing. Susan waded over. Beads of water glistened brilliantly on her lightly freckled chest. There was a blush of burn on her shoulders.

  “I hate that guy,” she said petulantly.

  Joel looked up at the lifeguard.

  “He’s just jealous,” he said.

  “Of Susan,” Teddy added.

  Joel’s deep, rolling laugh cut through the ongoing pool noise. His father’s laugh. He helped Susan out of the pool. They sat together in the chair next to Teddy.