“What’d you say your name is, Sophie? So Sophie, how old are you?”
“I’m sorry, but Sidney and I need to talk about something private, please excuse us.”
“What the heck is that supposed to mean? I’m her cousin. I’m a houseguest. You’re not going to pull some snooty act with me.”
His physical presence, standing right in front of us, bare tanned muscled chest, flimsy gold shorts, was too much. Sophie was getting angry, I could feel it. We were going into a fight or flight situation in our guts.
Sophie stood up off the stoop and started talking in a loud brave voice, “Okay, look, we get it. You want us to pay attention to you but we aren’t going to, so take your ridiculous self and go back in the house and put some real clothes on and get a life. I don’t know who you are, I don’t care who you are. I am never going to talk to you. Leave us alone.”
I felt myself getting scared as Tommy’s face became more indignant. I still had to live with this guy. My dad wasn’t home. I was going to have to go back in the house at some point.
He turned and headed toward the gate to the back yard. “You bitches can piss yourselves for all I care. Nice welcome, Sidney. I guess you haven’t changed a bit. I’ll be out back working on my tan.”
Sophie and I looked at each other as the gate slammed shut. We burst into giggles. Sophie had scared him off for now but I was still wary.
The next few days were awful. I was afraid to be in the house alone with the gorilla cousin. Every time I came around a corner, it seemed he was standing, looking at himself in a mirror, no shirt, gold shorts. I was in my last few days of school and working a lot at the ice cream parlor so I had reasons to be gone from the house. Tommy started going down to the exchange with my dad. No one told me anything, but I saw him put on tight pants, a dress shirt and a tie and leave with my dad in the morning. I couldn’t believe my dad was okay with bringing this guy who looked like a clown, with him. In a way, it made me think that family meant a lot to my dad because he was helping his nephew start a new career at the worst possible time for himself. But I also thought it was possible that the nephew’s presence was somehow helping my dad, I wasn’t sure how, but I sort of had a vague feeling that my dad wouldn’t do anything that didn’t benefit himself somehow. Maybe it was just an ego trip, having this big hulking guy following him around and taking orders. That was probably enough right there.
The house was getting wrecked. The dog was having accidents on my mom’s perfect carpeting. Poor guy, I didn’t blame him, everything was just so messed up—this strange guy was staying there, and I was gone a lot.
Dad bought a few cans of disgusting beef stew and pork and beans for Tommy and him to eat when they were home. There was no way I was eating that stuff. Dad didn’t even put the cans in the cupboard, he just set a stack of them by the stove and a few along the kitchen windowsill bumped up against my mother’s custom-made kitchen curtains.
Dad left the ironing board set up in the kitchen and came down in the mornings and quickly pressed himself a fresh shirt. My mom used to stand for hours priding herself on her meticulous ironing of my father’s beautiful dress shirts. Now they were getting discolored and frayed and he had lost so much weight, he had his pants doubled over at the back of the waistband, held in place with his leather belt.
When my cousin and my dad came home at night, they sometimes brought one or two more men with them and they would all drink. It wasn’t wine any more. It was bottles of Jack Daniel’s mostly. I would be in bed when they came in and I would stay in my room, usually with Brandy snuggled up with me until morning when the two men would either be snoring in their beds or already gone. I wasn’t sure I could handle much more. Everything felt on the verge of collapse. I was beginning to think I should try to get up North to be with my mom.
One morning the kitchen phone rang. “Hi Sidney, how are you doing honey?”
It was my mom. I was so touched to hear her voice, to hear her call me honey. I suddenly missed her so terribly. I started to cry and poured out as much as I could of what had been happening and how it was for me. She said it was awful what I had to go through and that I should come up there when school ended. I said I had to stay and work over the summer. She said the weather up there was getting nice. It was torture for me to hear her voice, think of the cabin and the lake, wishing I was up there.
My mom told me about a mother fox living under the cabin floor with two little kits who came out to play in the sun every afternoon. She told me that she wanted me to come up there and that I should try to figure something out, and then she had to go but said she’d call again soon.
After I hung up, I wondered about the likelihood of getting to go up to the cabin this summer. I knew Preston would be back any day now. I had no idea how that was all going to go. I decided to try to talk to Jay. I sat down at the kitchen table and called his parents’ house. His mother answered. “Hello, Mrs. Mayer. This is Sidney Duncan. Is Jay home?”
Jay’s mother was nice and Jay’s voice came on the line after just a few seconds, “Hey Sidney! How are you!”
He told me how he had driven my mom out to the cabin and helped her get the place warmed up and livable. He mentioned that there was some “friend of the family” who was there the last time he had stopped by, so he hadn’t been back since. “I figured if she needed my help, she knew where to find me.”
I didn’t want to know if that person had been sleeping there, so I didn’t ask and Jay didn’t say. I asked him what he thought about me trying to get up there. I told him how weird everything was here in Chicago.
“Why can’t you tell your dad you want to drive up and visit your mom?”
“I’ve only had my license for a little while. I’m not very good at driving on the highway. I’m not sure I could drive all the way up there. It’s like twelve hours.”
“Just get out a map, and take your time. You could do it. Ask him. It would be great to see you. And your mom would love it if you came, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
That night, Dad and Tommy and their weird sidekick, the ex-priest, were in the kitchen drinking and eating takeout pizza when I got home from the ice cream parlor. I thought I’d eat a piece of pizza and visit with them a little, to make it seem like everything was good between all of us. The ex-priest was the only one who said hello to me when I walked in.
“Hi,” I answered, “can I have a piece of the pizza?”
“Are you paying for it?” my dad shot back.
“Dad. Geez. Forget it. Never mind. Sorry I asked.”
“Suit yourself.”
I knew it wasn’t a good time, but I didn’t think there was ever going to be a good time, so I ventured, “Dad, what would you think of me driving up to the cabin for just like a week or something when school gets out? Maybe Sophie would ride up with me. She’s a good driver.”
Dad put his beer bottle down hard on the table.
“You are kidding, right?”
He looked at Tommy.
“I met that little sass Sophie. She’s bad news if you ask me.”
“Dad, Tommy is not helping to decide things in our family okay? I’m asking you.”
“Well, you might have a better chance of asking Tommy because I have absolutely no intention of letting you take that car anywhere except to your job and back home again. You still have another year of high school left, is that correct? Then you need to keep working and help keep this place going so you have a roof over your head for next winter. Understand? And if you think I am going to give you money to go visit your mother, forget it.”
I felt the prison doors closing. I felt sick. Tommy was gloating, I could feel it. I glanced at the ex-priest, but he had his eyes down like it was too shameful a thing to witness. Yeah, Mr. Ex-priest, avert your eyes from the evil around you.
The next night Preston was in the kitchen when I got home. I was thrilled. I was so relieved to have him back, so relieved to see him again. I noticed his fa
ce was withdrawn and he looked more worried than he used to, like life was weighing on him. Preston always looked up to Tommy, only because he was older, I thought. He and Tommy were already joking around like they used to when they were boys.
Dad bought Preston’s favorite Chicago-style hot-dogs from his favorite place in his old neighborhood on the way home from the exchange to celebrate his son’s return. There were white paper bags and huge hotdogs smothered with peppers or sauerkraut, each wrapped in its own paper, lying all over the kitchen table. It was a feast. Dad was happy and half-shouting a story to the other guys and everyone was wolfing down hotdogs. “So then this asshole has the nerve to tell me that the Jag needs a new goddamn pump when I’m telling him the pump is brand new and this is a finely tuned machine that does not go a day without a complete inspection by the finest mechanics in the city … ”
I was happy for the hotdogs and happy to hear my dad telling stories. He was on a roll, talking about things I never knew about his life.
“So I’m driving a fucking cab, and these people have no idea who they’re dealing with, they’re talking like they know one fucking thing about this city, about the best way to get to the Hancock building from O’Hare at two in the morning in a snowstorm. They have no idea I have a law degree. They have no idea I’ve held seats on the Chicago and New York Exchanges. They start arguing with me and that’s it, Boom, I snap, pull the fucking cab over. They’re scared like they think I’m going to rob them, I’m telling you the looks on their doughy pathetic faces was priceless … and I’m saying ‘Okay, look people … ’
“So I’m up at her shit-hole cabin that old Gramps built himself, and the water pump, I kid you not, is made out of a goddamn Folger’s can … am I right? Preston, am I right? Have you seen that thing? No? No, of course you haven’t because you don’t do a goddamn fucking thing to help, you’re just taking the money, getting your high-priced education. You know what you cost me last year? I’m going broke helping you! Why? You know why? Because my parents were too old-country, too provincial, to think their son needed a higher education. They thought whatever was good enough for them was good enough for their son. Yeah. That’s right. Who paid for me? Huh? Who paid my way? Huh? Yeah that’s right. Say it. Fucking say it. Nobody. Zero. Not one red cent. I worked all night at Swedish Covenant Hospital as an orderly. Did you know that? No. You don’t know anything do you?”
The next thing I knew Preston was saying, “Dad, don’t get yourself all worked up … ”
Dad leapt up to get his hands on Preston and then Preston stood, unsure on his feet. Dad hauled him out into the hallway and started boxing his ears and Preston had his hands up saying, “Dad, no! I’m sorry, stop … ”
I grabbed my dad’s shirt by the back, yelling, “Stop it! Leave him alone!”
My dad swatted me away with one arm. I ran back into the kitchen where Tommy had picked up the Sports Illustrated magazine that was lying on the table and was thumbing through the magazine nonchalantly like he was in the doctor’s office.
I cried out, “What is wrong with you, Tommy? You have to do something!”
Tommy looked at me and said, feigning calmness, “He’s my uncle. I’m not going against him. It’s his house. It’s not my place.”
The scuffle seemed to have quieted down, but while we were still alone looking each other in the eyes, I took the opportunity to say to Tommy, “You make me sick.”
I had no interest in waiting for a response. I passed through the now darkened hall to the stairs and safely made it to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. Before I opened the door again I listened to be sure that my brother and dad had both gone to their rooms. When I was sure there was nobody around, I unlocked the door, dashed across the dark hall at the top of the stairs to my room, locked my flimsy little lock and pushed my dresser in front of my door.
A few days later my school let out for the summer. I got two As and two Bs, which was sort of my usual. I never tried to get As in the classes I didn’t really care about. But I tried to never get a C. I realized, as had been the case almost all along, that there was no one to show my report card to, that no one showed any interest. I brought it home on the last day and set it, standing up, on top of its cardboard envelope, on the kitchen table. I thought of the papers that used to be sitting there for my mom to sign. I thought of the times my mom left Preston’s report card on the table for “your father to see this when he gets home” as a threat to Preston when he got even one B instead of all As. I wondered if my dad would pick it up when he saw it or even notice it sitting there.
I was officially home for the summer now. I put on my cut-off shorts that thankfully still fit from last summer and a T-shirt of my brother’s and called Brandy to come put on his leash. We stepped out the front door into the bright sunlight and I thought about how different it would be to not be in Minnesota for the summer where the air always cooled down at night, where the crystal-clear water was so cold you could barely stand it, but was just perfect by late July. How the sky there was huge and endless and the clouds were so expressive and you saw the weather at all times playing out in a majestic drama. The lake itself had so many moods. The water could express joy and be light and frolicking or it could be foreboding and dark. There were no boys like Jay in Chicago either. I’d gone to the public schools since kindergarten and I had never met any who were as down-to-earth and as closely connected to nature. There were really no girls like me either. Some of the more sophisticated intellectual girls were sort of like me, but they usually weren’t as tomboyish or they would never understand, ever in a million years, my fondness for a boy like Jay. Most of them weren’t used to spending as much time alone as I was. Most of them probably didn’t know what it felt like to have nobody care about them all that much.
Brandy and I walked all the way to the forest preserve on the other side of the high school. Some people said that girls shouldn’t go in there alone, but it was the only woods I had now and Brandy was pretty scary-looking to most people. We walked through the coolest, deepest part of the woods and I thought that it would be very hard to stay home all summer and have this be the only slice of nature. It got really hot in Chicago and summer had barely begun. The kids in my neighborhood went to the public pool a lot. I had been there once or twice at the beginning or end of summer, but I thought it would be pretty sad to have that be where I went to swim instead of the big cold northern lake with the rocky shore and the crashing waves, and the canoe, and the dock, and the dreamy long days and possibly, fun nights with other kids up there.
I walked back home slowly, Brandy panting and moving slowly. I talked to him, “We’ve got a long summer ahead of us, buddy. If you’re hot now, what are we going to do in July?” He and I sat down for a few minutes on the grassy corner across from our house. There were no sidewalks in the fancy neighborhoods so I sat on the cement curb and Brandy lay down and rolled over on his side in the grass. I stared at our house. Plain white. My mom always talked about the dormer windows on the second floor. She loves the house. Her parents only had an apartment in Chicago and the little cabin up north so it was the first real house she’d ever lived in. I didn’t look at it with love. I hated the celadon green inside and I hated the three sterile bushes planted painstakingly across the front under the picture window.
I hated the bad memories, and there were plenty. I looked at the garage and remembered Dad yelling at us for scratching one of his precious cars. He lined us all up, even Mom, and interrogated us about how the passenger side of his two-door Jaguar got scratched. What a freak! I had good memories too. I remembered how I would decorate the dormer window in my room every Christmas. I set up my portable record player by my desk near the window and plugged it in to an outlet that was triggered by the light switch next to the room door. I set the record player needle to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s rendition of “Joy to the World.” I also plugged in a desk-sized, white plastic Christmas tree with tiny pastel lights that my mom had bought
for me, in the center of my window so people could see it when they drove by. When anyone entered my room during the holidays they would be regaled with the blasting music and they’d see my little tree. I thought the whole thing was very wonderful.
I crossed the street slowly with Brandy in tow. He didn’t want to walk but he was probably thirsty so we had to go inside. We entered the house and everything was quiet. We were the only ones home. I looked at my mother’s precious house. Her carpeted stairs that I had vacuumed a million times were now damped down, soiled. I looked at the living room picture window with white divided enameled panes. Mom usually had the window-washing spray and paper towels out almost daily to wipe the place where Brandy sat and smudged the window. Now you could see the shape of his body where he leaned against her celadon-green, silk full-length curtains, resting his slobbering chin on the white enameled windowsill. I walked into the kitchen where cans of beef stew were strewn around the sink, the dishes only half done, the ironing board blocking access to the stove and the cupboards.
My parents’ pub sign they loved so much was even harder to look at now. Bitterness was on my tongue as I recited, without having to read, “Money’s the root of all evil, it’s treacherous, slippery and vile, but the baker, the banker, the preacher and I don’t think that it’s gone out of style.”
I filled Brandy’s dishes with water and food. I patted his soft head. He drank his water and sighed, settling down in his bed in the corner. What a good dog. So unassuming. “I love you Brandy. I promise I won’t let you down.” I crouched down next to him in the corner, behind the kitchen table. I sat down in the corner on the floor next to him and rested my head on his back and put my arms all around him. I saw how the world looked through his eyes. Water, food, someone to sit with him. What the hell else was there? I kissed him on his nose and eased up out of the corner and headed to my room. I wanted him to eat so I didn’t invite him up with me.
A Girl Called Sidney Page 11