Hunger Point

by Jillian Medoff

  We all get up. “I’d better be going,” I tell them.

  “No, Frannie,” Freddie says. “It’s Shabbos. Zey have dancing.”

  “You can’t leave yet, Madonna,” Charlie whispers. “Give him one dance. You’re all he talks about.”

  In the auditorium, chairs and tables have been pushed to the sides to make room for a dance floor. The lighting is dim and the music is extremely loud like at a heavy metal concert. The score from Fiddler on the Roof is playing. Women in wheelchairs line up around the dance floor, clapping their hands to the music. Not one of them claps in time to the beat, most of them can’t even get their hands to connect. Out on the dance floor, four or five women waltz with each other, their movements jerky and uncoordinated. A lone old man stands in the middle of the dance floor as three women sway around him. My eyes fill with tears as I walk inside.

  “Excuse me.” Charlie walks to the dance floor. He takes one of the women in his arms, waltzes her slowly across the floor. All the other women giggle.

  “Shall ve?” Freddie holds out his arms. “Get me now before ze vultures do.” He puts his arms around me and we waltz clumsily across the small wooden dance floor. I nestle my neck in the crook of his shoulder. He smells like roast chicken and sweet purple wine.

  “May I cut in?”

  Freddie releases me too quickly, and I stumble toward Charlie. I try to get my balance, but I trip first over his foot, then over my own. “Great moves there, Madonna,” he says, laughing.

  “You think you’re so great, don’t you?” I blurt out.

  “Yeah, don’t you?” He pulls me toward him. As we move together, I slowly relax. He reaches down and pulls my arms around his neck. He’s stocky and sturdy and great to hug. I reach up and run my hands through his hair. Horrified, I pull back. “It’s okay,” he says softly. “It’s clean. My grandfather made sure I was all decked out just for you.”

  Across the room, I see the woman from the bathroom. Her little body sways to the music, her hands clasped in front of her. She waves at me with a scarf like I’m on the deck of a steamer and she’s seeing me off. “Who’s that?” Charlie asks.

  “A fan.” I wish my grandfather was awake. It would make him happy to see me dancing. Charlie pulls me close, his hand pressed against my back. As he waltzes me slowly across the floor, I feel weightless and luminous and rich with youth. I hear the clomp of a cane, but with my eyes closed, I imagine it is something else, far away. The lights in the auditorium are pretty. In fact, if I close one eye and squint through the other, I can pretend I’m on a beach in the South Pacific, being held very close by someone I love. So I do it. And as we sway with the magical rhythm of an unspoken connection, I feel like I’m finally moving to a place I’ve never been.

  20

  Frannie.” My father walks into my room. “The mail’s here. Abby sent a postcard.”

  In my closet, I finger an orange jacket, wondering what possessed me to purchase such a heinous color. “What does it say?”

  “I didn’t read it. How was last night?”

  “Fine. Good, actually.” Charlie walked me to my car. We hugged awkwardly. “I’ll call you sometime, Madonna,” he said. Famous last words. My father stands with his hands jammed into his pockets. “How was your date?” I ask. “The Rainbow Room?”

  He shrugs. “We didn’t make it there.” He looks down, as if embarrassed. “We started talking and filled up on that oyster dip. That dip was good, wasn’t it?”

  “Delicious. I can still taste it.” His hair is matted and his eyes are puffy. “Daddy, is something wrong?” He shakes his head. Then he tells me in a sad, somber voice that he can see I’m busy so he’ll leave me alone. “You want to have dinner with me one night?” he asks.

  “Sure. Eleanor too?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t think I’ll be seeing Eleanor anymore,” he says. “I like her. I like her very much. She’s very smart. I just don’t think I’m ready for the kind of relationship she’s looking for. She’s a bit … intense.”

  I look at him. I can’t fucking believe this. My dad can’t commit. I can see it now. He’ll father hundreds of babies who won’t know him, he’ll be hit with paternity suits, he’ll beg me for refuge from teenage girls with big bellies. “Daddy,” I say slowly, “you’ve been married a long time. It’s not easy to jump into a new relationship when you’re still working out an old one. Maybe this separation just proves that you and Mommy are meant to be together.”

  “Has she said anything to you?”

  “Mommy’s been in Tempe, Daddy,” I say, cringing at the sound of his voice. “We really haven’t discussed it.”

  “Oh.” When he walks away, I notice he’s limping. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

  “Nothing. Just old age.” He lingers in my doorway, reaches down, and absently rubs his calf. After a while, he stands for a very long moment and stares ahead at Shelly’s bedroom.

  On the front of Abby’s postcard is a naked woman with long blond hair buried in sand up to her waist. Across her bare tits is the message Greetings From Bermuda. Her erect nipples look like pink pencil erasers. I turn the card over:

  Some beach in Bermuda—Hell on Earth

  Frannie:

  Been here three days and can’t wait to leave. This place is for honeymooners and Texans. Randy is on my nerves in a big way. We’re breaking up when we get home, but I don’t want to tell him here ’cause he already sunk a grand into this trip. I’m not ready for a big commitment. I miss being a slut (like you). C’est la vie. (That’s French for “another one bites the dust.”) I’d call you, but Randy’s already pissed that I ordered room service ($37 for Diet Cokes and chips. Who knew?). I know you’re lonely without me, but I’ll be home soon.

  The weather is here, wish you were beautiful.

  Love and kisses,

  Your Spinster Friend

  P.S. That’s me on the front. I colored my hair. Maybe blonds do have more fun. Check out those nips. Vavavoom!!

  I grab two suits to take to the cleaner’s, bills to mail, shoes to reheel, and a Glamour magazine that has the article “Thinner Thighs in Thirty Days” that I plan to read to my grandfather and Freddie this afternoon by the pool. I throw everything into the car and drive off. Instead of feeling invigorated by an entire August weekend, I feel frustrated at having to do everything by myself all the time.

  When I get home, my father is watching television in the den. All the lights are off and the curtains are drawn. “Daddy?” I call out softly. “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “You want to go to the supermarket with me? I need to get some things.” He shakes his head and I snap on the light. “You can’t just sit here, Daddy. You have to get out.”

  “Let’s just go tomorrow, okay? I don’t feel like going tonight. By the way, Mommy left a message on the machine,” he says sadly. “She wants you to call her.”

  “Is that why you’re upset?”

  He shrugs. I glance over his shoulder at Shelly’s graduation picture. I look back at my father, hunched forward, shoulders drawn, and I want to cry. This is all your fault, I scream at Shelly in my head. This is all because of YOU! She stares at me, her eyes fixated on something in the distance. I walk over to the mantel and take her picture down. I want to smack her smug expression off her face.

  “Hey!” my father calls out. “Where are you going with that?”

  “I’m just moving it.”

  Alone upstairs, I open Shelly’s bedroom door and peer inside. Everything looks the same. Her furniture is pushed against the wall, her bed is made, luggage is piled in the corner. A lamp sits without a shade. I put her picture on her dresser. I can’t look at her bed, so I sit on the floor in the closet and slowly open a box marked Hospital.

  I pull out a few bras, some T-shirts, and four pairs of black leggings—all size one. My sister’s shrunken face burns on my retina as if she has appeared in the room and then vanished. I shake out a

  T-sh
irt. LINDSEY POINT 10K RUN. I ball up the shirt and stuff it back into the box. I spy Shelly’s yellow bumblebee coat pushed to the back of the closet. I pull the coat down and also stuff it into the box.

  I think of my family and how unhappy we are. My mother’s alone in a pathetic apartment, my father’s alone in this ugly, old house, my blind grandfather is living in an old-age home, and I’m still stuck in my little twin bed. I can’t believe how unfair this is. Maybe things weren’t perfect before Shelly died, maybe we had problems, but sometimes we laughed. Sometimes we even had fun.

  I hold up my sister’s leggings again. They look like they were made for a little girl, not a grown woman who goes to college, works for a man who worships her, and could have gone to Harvard Law. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO US? I pull on the leggings, trying to rip them, but they won’t tear. I hold up a leg and gnaw on it until I finally make a hole. Then I shred it into little strips. I’m sweating and panting, but I pick up another pair and gnaw on the crotch until I have a hole big enough to rip. I grunt like a big, fat pig. My gums bleed from the friction of the fabric and I tear my cuticles, but I keep ripping my sister’s leggings until I have ragged pieces of black fabric piled by my feet.

  When I’m done, I lie down in my sister’s bed and smear her pillow with the blood from my mouth and fingers. I bury my nose in the pillow, and missing her, I cry myself to sleep.

  “Are you coming with me to the supermarket?” I ask my father the next morning at breakfast.

  “I guess. What were you doing in your sister’s room?”

  “Nothing, just cleaning up.” I rub my mouth where my gums ache. When I got up this morning, I was startled to find myself in Shelly’s bed. But when I began to get spooked, I made myself sit in her bed and count to ten. Then I cleaned up the floor, picked out some clothes that I wanted, and put the box in my bedroom to take to the home. I got into my own bed and slept peacefully without dreaming.

  In the car on the way to the supermarket, my father is quiet. He sits in the passenger side as I drive and stares out the window. “Are you hot?” I ask. He shakes his head. “I can turn the air higher if you’re hot.” I glance at him sideways. “Mommy’s coming home soon. I’ll pick her up. Unless you want to.”

  “I think it’s better if you go.”

  I pull into the parking lot and turn off the engine. “Do you think you guys will work things out?” I ask.

  “That’s up to her. I haven’t thought about it.” He looks away.

  “I don’t believe you. Come on, Daddy. Why can’t you talk to me? I’m your daughter.”

  He stares in my direction, but doesn’t look at me. “I want,” he says slowly, as though each word pains him, “things to be the way they were. I don’t think our life was so bad.”

  “But maybe it will. Maybe it will be the same, just different. And the different things will be good.”

  “I guess.” He opens the door and begins to get out.

  “Wait a second, Daddy. I want to talk. I know you miss Mommy. I know you do.”

  He looks at his hands. “I … uh … I wish your mother and I … I wish we could start over … that may sound foolish, but that’s what I wish. I think about how things are and how they got this way … Frannie, I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I think it’s important that you know.”

  “Know what?” I clutch the steering wheel. “What else do I have to know?”

  “Remember last fall when you had that date with that doctor from St. Mary’s?” I nod. “You took my car and didn’t bring it back?” I nod, slower this time. “Well, I borrowed your mother’s car to take Grandpa to the doctor. I stopped at the cleaner’s. When I handed the girl your mother’s On-Target jacket, a note fell out. It was a love note from Johnny Bennet to Mommy.” He takes a deep breath. “Frannie,” he says solemnly. “Your mother is an adulteress.”

  I stare at him. That’s it? That’s the whole thing? How could you think that I didn’t know? You’re such a Martian! “You’ve known since then and didn’t say anything?” I ask.

  “I didn’t want you girls … uh … you, to know. I’m your father. I try to protect you from unpleasant things.”

  “It must have been hard,” I tell him gently, thinking I should explain how sometimes women do things for the wrong reasons, how sometimes it’s hard not to say no even when you don’t mean yes, when yes never crossed your mind. “Maybe you’re wrong,” I say, calculating every word. “Maybe you misunderstood.”

  He shakes his head. “No, I talked to Mommy about it, and she said—”

  I cut him off. “Dad, I’m really hot. Let’s talk inside where it’s air conditioned.”

  Stone-faced, he gets out. I feel guilty cutting him off just as the dam was about to break, but I can’t hide what I know. And then I’d really fuck up their chances for reconciling. Before I get out, I reach into the backseat and pull out the just do it sweatshirt I took from Shelly’s room.

  “Where did that come from?” my father asks sharply.

  “I went through Shelly’s things last night,” I tell him. “I’m making a donation to the home. Why are you yelling at me?”

  “You cleaned out her room?” He barks. “Why didn’t you say something to me, goddammit?”

  “Someone had to clean her room, Daddy. All those things were just sitting there, collecting dust.”

  “Well you could have said something. She was my daughter, Frannie. You just don’t go into her room and give away her things. Maybe there was something I would have liked to keep. Did you ever think about that?”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy. I didn’t realize. Everything’s still there.”

  “Sometimes you need to think about someone other than yourself, Frannie. What about her diploma and her books? Are those still there?” I nod. “I was so proud of Shelly,” he continues. “Proud that she had graduated from Cornell, that she was gonna be a lawyer. I want to remember those things. Those things are all I have left. I couldn’t have done those things. It meant something to me.”

  “I understand, Daddy. I couldn’t have done them, either. Everything’s still there. You can go through it all when you’re ready.”

  He doesn’t answer. He gets out of the car and walks into the supermarket, five paces ahead of me. All the way in, he limps as if lame.

  I lean on the handle of the shopping cart while my father walks ahead. “Why are you moving so slowly?” he asks sharply.

  “I didn’t know we had a time limit.” I pause. “Daddy, I’m sorry I took Shelly’s things. I really am.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have gotten so upset. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

  A little girl walks next to me. She looks up at the shelf. “You want cereal?” I ask. “Which one?” She points to a box of Count Chocula. I hand it to her and she almost topples backwards.

  “She’s cute, isn’t she?” my father says idly. “I remember when you were that little.” He doesn’t say anything else except to murmur something to the toddler. He touches her head and it seems like it’s agony for him to draw his hand away. I realize, as he watches her stumble away with the box, that it’s Shelly he’s remembering. Shelly as a little girl, who went to Cornell, who killed herself and left us all behind to wonder what we did wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong, Daddy, I whisper to his back.

  An hour later, we move toward the checkout counter. I notice the National Enquirer. woman gives birth to baby baboon. As I inch the cart forward, I spy the little girl walking through the maze of carts, still holding the cereal box. Her eyes are wide and rimmed with tears. She walks to my father.

  “Are you lost?” he asks her in a high-pitched baby voice I’ve never heard before.

  She bursts into tears. I look up from the magazine and see that my father is smiling but his face is tight, as if he has gas. He picks up the girl and weaves his way through the carts until he sees her mother racing toward them. The mother scoops up the girl and hugs her. “Thanks,” she tells my dad. “I got scared.”

/>   He waves his hand, as if to say it was nothing, and returns to the checkout counter where I’m standing. As he takes out his wallet, I lose myself in the birth of the baby baboon.

  “Are you okay?” I hear the checkout girl’s voice. I look up to see her leaning toward my father, but he’s staring over her head, his face ashen. I can see beads of perspiration on his forehead.

  “Daddy? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m fine,” he whispers to the girl. “It’s my daughter. My little girl.” A sharp honk escapes his lips, and he doubles over as if punched in the stomach. Red-faced, I pat his shoulder as more weird-sounding sobs rack his body. “My daughter is dead.” He looks up at the checkout girl, who stares at him, wide-eyed. “She graduated with all A’s, she was going to Harvard, but she’s dead.” He continues to cry. “I’m sorry,” he says to the girl, then to me. “I just miss her so much. I never had a chance to tell her how proud I was.”

  I’m aware that this is a breakthrough moment, but instead of feeling therapeutic, it’s awkward and uncomfortable. In my haste to reach my dad, I dropped the Enquirer. I stare down at the picture of a bewildered man cradling his monkey baby. I step on it so my father won’t see and pat him some more, wishing I knew what to say.

  On Monday at work, Sue stands over my desk. “Frannie,” she asks. “Do you mind covering the phones during lunch?”

  “Be happy to.”

  “Thanks. By the way, Abby called again. At least I think it’s Abby. She said it was Ronald McDonald.”

  “It was Abby.” I move to Sue’s desk and put on her headset. I’m working on a holiday promotion for a Rascals in Connecticut. We plan our promotions months in advance, so the theme I’m working on is “Christmas Cocktails.” I envision all the servers wearing elf hats or reindeer horns serving drinks called Santa’s Schnapps and Rudolph Rum Runners. I begin to brainstorm. Elf ears and reindeer horns are just the beginning.

  “Good afternoon, Cuisine America.”