He came by the following afternoon, once again making small talk with Irma in the living room. He could see right away that the idea he’d sown had taken root in her mind. Yesterday’s wariness was gone. After a few minutes she called upstairs for Susan, who descended with an aria of put-upon sighs. When she reached the bottom of the steps even Teddy was shocked. She looked like she’d been weeping for months. Her eyes were puffy and her hair wild. She wore a Fort Meade sweatshirt and a pair of khaki cutoffs. Teddy thought about those dark nipples and the way her body had woven with Joel’s into a seamless knot of soft flesh. He felt himself start to get hard, so he thought of other things.
Susan gave Teddy a quizzical look.
“Hey, Susan.”
“Hey,” she said, her voice small and confused.
“How you been?”
She shrugged, then came into the living room and sat in the other brown chair, folding her long left leg beneath her. Irma continued to stand in the arched doorway.
“So what you been doing?” Teddy asked.
“Nothing. Listening to records.”
“You hear the new Zeppelin?”
Susan shook her head in confusion. She hated Led Zeppelin.
“I could tape it for you.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes narrowing. She might be stupid, but she’d also been around Teddy long enough to know that something was up.
“Sure.”
“Well, I’ll leave you two alone,” Irma said. She pointed a stern finger at Susan. “No going out.”
Irma walked off. Susan’s expression grew serious, like she was about to say something. Teddy held a finger to his lips and cocked an ear toward the door. He could hear the consecutive thuds of Irma’s tossed slippers on the kitchen floor, followed a few seconds later by the faint suck of her naked soles on the hall’s tile. Teddy pointed a cautionary finger in her direction as he started to talk.
“I saw Drew Harvey this morning,” he said conversationally.
“Drew?” Susan asked.
No such person existed. Teddy opened his hands and mouth and eyes in a dumb show of exasperated encouragement.
“Oh,” Susan said. “How’s Drew?”
“He said Monica freaked out when she heard about him and Cindy.”
“Yeah,” Susan said, slowly getting into the flow. “I guess she would.”
They spoke like this for nearly twenty minutes. Several times Teddy heard Irma retreat to the kitchen to rattle pots and fake phone calls, always creeping back to her hidden listening post just beyond the arched entrance. Occasionally Susan looked set to break the flow of their charade. Each time Teddy patted the air in front of him for silence. Finally, he announced that it was time for him to go. He heard Irma retreat quickly to the kitchen as Susan walked him to the front door.
“’Bye, Mrs. Truax,” he called.
She appeared in the kitchen door, wiping her dry hands on a paper towel.
“Good-bye, Edward. Come see us again.”
“I sure will.”
Teddy stepped through the door. Susan leaned out after him.
“Teddy,” she whispered. “You got to tell Joel …”
Teddy held up his index finger.
“I’m going to tell you this once, Susan,” he hissed. “Shut the fuck up.”
She screwed up her face.
“Do exactly what I say or you’ll never see Joel again.”
“But …”
“Fine.”
He wheeled and began to walk away.
“Teddy …” she whispered.
He stopped and turned. Real slow. She looked at him for a moment, then dipped her head submissively.
“Okay.”
The door opened further, revealing Irma. She smiled at Teddy and began to stroke Susan’s long hair.
“See you ladies later,” Teddy said before walking back to his Firebird.
He returned the next afternoon, wrangling a dinner invitation from Irma just moments after walking in the door. Truax was home, though he slept soundly upstairs, having already put in some long hours doing his hush-hush work for the Swope. Irma cooked corned beef hash and mashed potatoes, a coagulated mass of gristle and starch that Teddy knew would inhabit his gastric canals for days. He noticed that Susan ate practically nothing. Darryl, on the other hand, downed three helpings. Teddy decided to focus on the poor kid, regaling her with tales of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Shroud of Turin and every other scientific proof of Christ’s existence he could summon from his memory banks. Darryl listened in slack-jawed awe. She really was a fucking cow. If I looked like her and had Susan for a sister I’d be a Satanist, Teddy concluded. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Irma’s admiring gaze. Clearly, her Darryl was not usually afforded this kind of attention.
“All right,” he announced after dinner, clapping his hands once. “I scream, you scream …”
And so they were off to Baskin-Robbins for Mocha Mocha and Rocky Road. Teddy drove. His car reeked faintly but he doubted Irma could detect the weed. As they stood in line she regaled him with some boring story about how the sarge first caught her attention back in Germany by bringing her an ice cream. Though he felt like sawing away at a notional violin, Teddy let her have her say. At home he simply dropped them off, not wanting to push too hard. He noticed that Truax’s Cutlass was gone. The Swope must really be working the guy.
Susan was last out of the car.
“See you tomorrow,” he said, a wink in his voice.
She nodded and then slipped Teddy a folded piece of notebook paper. She meant to be sly about it but the gesture was awkward. If Irma had been looking she would have seen it for sure. Luckily, she was too busy finishing off Susan’s unwanted sugar cone. Teddy jammed the paper under his thigh and smiled tightly at Susan.
“See ya,” she replied.
He stopped just after turning the corner, unable to believe Susan’s stupidity. He looked at the paper. It was, surprise surprise, a note to Joel. Teddy read it by the light of his Cricket. Susan’s loopy scrawl was barely grammatical. “I miss U so much.” “I can’t believe there doing this to us.” Nothing about Teddy, of course. Not a syllable of gratitude. He used the Cricket to set an edge of the paper alight, dangling it out the window until it was fully involved. Unauthorized communications vill not be allowt, he told himself. He drove off, leaving her words smoldering on the asphalt.
Upon arriving Friday afternoon he asked Irma if she’d like to go for a walk with them around the block. She seemed tempted, but then thought the better of it. Teddy realized that she’d swallowed the second chunk of his bait. Having won her trust, he’d now convinced her that he had a crush on Susan. Once they were clear of the house, Teddy turned to Susan.
“If you ever pull another stunt like that note then we’re done.”
“Did you give it to him, though?”
“Of course I did, Susan. What do you think I am?”
“Did he say anything?”
“He wanted me to give you a message.”
She nodded expectantly.
“He wants you to do whatever I ask.”
Her expression collapsed.
“Do you understand, Susan? Whatever I say. Otherwise this isn’t gonna happen. All right?”
“All right,” she said with theatrical reluctance.
Teddy explained how it was going to work. She was going to start dating him. Slowly but surely, they were going to become embroiled in an all-American romance that would warm Irma’s Teutonic heart. Meanwhile, Teddy and Joel were pretending to have a big fallout. Once every-body’s parents were sufficiently bullshitted, Teddy would arrange it so Susan and Joel would be able to see each other.
“All right,” Susan said after a moment, making a big show out of hating the idea of dating Teddy. “If that’s the only way.”
“That’s the only way.”
As they arrived back in front of the Truax house, Teddy could see Irma’s shadowy figure behind the living room’s lace curtains.
“Smil
e,” he said.
Susan smiled.
“Laugh, like I said something warm and witty.”
She soundlessly tossed back her pretty head.
“Now say what a great guy you think I am.”
“You’re an asshole, Teddy Swope.”
“Excellent. Now let’s go play with your mom.”
The game ended with Irma taking the Congo. Her forces straddled the dark continent. Just as Teddy had planned. He stretched, then checked his watch.
“Well, I better get going.”
“No. Really? Not another game?”
Irma smiled demurely, a desirable fräulein once again. Flecks of whiskied froth clung to her lips like the remnants of an ocean wave.
“One drubbing per night’s my limit,” Teddy said.
He hazarded a Euro-peck on her cheek. She accepted it with closed eyes and a smile. Darryl had to settle for a wave.
“See you tomorrow?” he asked Susan when they reached the front door.
She nodded. In the kitchen, Irma was putting horses and men back in the box, watching them out of the corner of her eye. Teddy had an idea.
“Kiss,” he commanded.
Susan looked at him in astonishment. Teddy smiled in a way that let her know he wasn’t kidding. So, after a brief sigh, she closed her eyes in reluctant assent. Teddy pressed his lips against hers. They tasted like cheap candy. He was surprised how cold they were. He would have thought they’d be warmer.
When they pulled apart he could see Irma still watching them out of the corner of her eye, a faint smile pouting her full lips.
Bingo, Teddy thought.
“Good night,” he said to Susan.
Petulant cunt didn’t answer. Teddy slipped out the door into the warm night, ambling triumphantly past the gaslight, whistling the bridge from “Jealous Guy.” All he had to do now was organize an out-of-the-house date and he’d be able to give Joel the gift that would revivify their friendship. Thoughts of bong hits and wisecracks and that sortie to the seaboard put a little skip in his step. It wasn’t until he’d made it all the way to the Firebird that a realization froze him in his tracks, further widening his smile and swelling his paltry chest.
He’d just had his first kiss.
20
His lips tasted like something that had leaked through slit cellophane onto the chipped ice in the A & P meat department. Cold and warm at the same time; wet and dry. That filmy root beer coating unable to mask their fundamental bitterness. God, she hated him. She couldn’t wait until this was over. Her only regret about ditching him was that she wouldn’t be able to see his eyes after she vanished with Joel. Because that’s exactly what was going to happen as soon as Teddy got them together. They were going to be history.
After closing the door her first temptation was to bolt up to the bathroom and sop her mouth out with half a bottle of Listerine, then spend about twenty minutes brushing her teeth with those thermonuclear Pearl Drops her mother used. Instead, she walked back to the kitchen to help clean up. She had to be good now. No more defiance. No more fights. No more slammed doors. Any slips and her mother’s slackening vigilance would tighten back up for good. And then she would never be able to leave. It would be Teddy and Newton forever.
Irma was still putting away the game, stacking the cards and slotting the little soldiers into their proper boxes. She’d freshened her drink, new froth mixing with old scum. Overlapping crescents of bloodred lipstick stained the tumbler’s rim. Irma always refilled. Using new glasses would allow people to count her drinks. As if any fool couldn’t see how many she’d had in her rheumy eyes and bright pink cheeks.
Susan collected dishes from the table and began to load them into the dishwasher.
“He is such a nice young man,” Irma said for the hundredth time.
“Yeah,” Susan tonelessly agreed. “He’s great.”
Irma smiled wistfully.
“I think maybe he let me win.”
No duh, Susan thought. Her mother was usually hard to bamboozle, though with Teddy she was as blind as a caveful of bats.
“I am thinking he very much likes you,” she continued.
Booze had the same effect on her sentences as the proverbial bull in a china shop.
“Really?”
“Don’t you?”
Susan shut the dishwasher’s door.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Come.” The castered chair opposite Irma rolled backward a few inches, pushed by an invisible slippered foot. “Sit here with me for a minute.”
Susan wanted nothing less than to spend more time with her mother, especially gossiping about the romantic possibilities of Edward Swope. But she couldn’t afford to rouse suspicion. Not when she was getting so close. So she dropped into the offered seat, the bare backs of her thighs squeaking on the Naugahyde. The top of the Risk box rested in front of her. Susan studied it for a moment. Those white horses with their flared nostrils. The men with their furry hats and drawn swords. Her father had been a soldier. Though she knew his war was nothing like this.
Irma continued to put away the pieces.
“So. Susan. It is so good to see you happy like this.”
Susan smiled demurely as she fixed a stray frond of hair behind her ear.
“He’s so different from the ones you’ve been with before.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know. More sensitive. Not such a … stallion.”
Christ. The words her mother came up with. Half the time she could hardly even speak English and then she hit you with these things nobody’s even heard of.
“Believe me,” Irma continued. “Those big manly aspects don’t count for as much as you think. Not when it is all said and it is all done. I’m speaking here of your father, darling, in case there is a confusion.”
Susan searched for an appropriate response, something that might possibly explain an attraction to Teddy.
“He’s got nice eyes,” she said finally.
“And intelligent?” Irma answered her own question with a click of the tongue. “That’s what you want in a boy. I’ll tell you, if I had been lucky to be born here like you it wouldn’t be Sally Swope sitting over there in Mystic Hills.”
Which would mean you’d be wanting me to date my brother, Susan thought. Which would be just about typical.
“So. Tell me. After just a few days—do you think maybe there’s something between you two?”
“Could be. It’s hard to tell with Teddy. He’s such a … gentleman.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.” Her eyes narrowed and she took another sip. “Especially after our tree-swinging friend with his temper and his …”
Irma temporarily lost her train of thought. Susan bit her tongue.
“Let me give you some advice, young lady. Do what you have to do for this boy. You may be Miss America now but before long the blossoms are withering. What the Swopes have is what counts in this world. Get some of it now while you can afford it. Me, I had no chance when I was your age. All the boys.” She drew her finger across her throat and made a cranking sound. “Either that or in the Russian camps. There were only Americans and who was to know about them? You find one who looks like maybe he can look after you and then you turn around and he’s a Jew. So I went for the one with the broad shoulders and the gentle smile and look at me now. Living in this horrid little box in this ridiculous toy city while there are country clubs and senators out there.”
A bitter sheen now glazed Irma’s face.
“I had no choice. This you must know, my Susan. I was hungry. You will never know hunger. But I did. The way your stomach closes like a fist and then starts hitting you from inside. I was a teenage girl. Do you think this is fair? And then your father comes along with an ice cream cone when there is no food. So suddenly I do have a choice. So I do the things a woman has to do to make sure there will always be one more ice cream, yes? I get away from the hungry place. We come here. And then the years pass and I find
that I have made the wrong choice.”
“Mom …”
“No, I am not saying that John is a bad man. He is good. Better than anyone will ever know. The things he did for that rotten army … but he is not a vinner. All right? He is a loser. And nothing is hated more in this country than a loser.”
“I don’t think Daddy’s a loser.”
Irma shrugged.
“That’s because you are a sweet girl.”
“But he fought in the war and …”
“Lost!”
“But that wasn’t his fault. That was LBJ and Macnawhatever—all those awful old men. We read about it in history.”
“Tell that to the boys from my village they buried in a ditch out by the apple orchard. About losing not being the soldier’s fault.”
She pointed at Susan over the glass she continued to grasp.
“That is why I won’t let you see Joel Wooten. Not because of the fucking. The fucking is what we do to hold them. We wrap ourselves around those brainless things between their legs and hold on for dear life.”
Susan couldn’t believe she was hearing this. Her mother must be more shitfaced than she looked. She had to say something. Even though she knew she should just nod and take it, she had to defend Joel.
“But Joel isn’t a loser,” she said, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.
Irma’s right eyebrow shot up at a scrutinizing angle. Susan realized she should be careful. Defending Joel risked blowing the whole charade. But this was the man she loved they were talking about.
“He’s smart and he’s from a nice family,” she continued, her voice matter-of-fact. “He’s going to college. And—”
“And he’s a nigger.”
Susan stared incredulously at Irma.
“Mother.”
“Don’t look at me like that, young lady. I am not blind. Twenty years I’ve been here and you don’t think I see who the losers are in this fair country of ours? The niggers. I come from a tribe of losers, remember? You think I’ve traveled this far to see my daughter wind up joining another one?”
“That’s just prejudice.”
“No. It is not. It is reality. I don’t make the rules. I just keep my family from suffering under them.”
The New City Page 28