Drinking Closer to Home

by Jessica Anya Blau

  Chapter 19

  Day Nine

  On Day Nine Louise is moved out of intensive care into the cardiac wing on another floor. She has a regular room now, with a bathroom.

  “I’m feeling a lot better,” Louise says, after waking up from a nap. It is the afternoon. Anna, Portia, Emery, and Alejandro have returned from a walk to the secondhand store, Claire’s Closet, down the street. Claire’s Closet isn’t one of those secondhand stores that smell like damp, used gym socks and mothballs, where the clothes seem to feel slightly gritty, as if there’s salty sweat dried on them. It is a secondhand store with designer clothes, run by a woman with slick black hair in a model’s bun and wearing a clingy dress that reveals just how narrow and tall she is.

  “You look absolutely gorgeous,” Buzzy says to Louise. “I’m so glad you feel better.” When he leans over to stroke Louise’s forehead, Emery groans in a quick hiccupping way. Anna thinks her brother’s having a hard time letting the Stinky float off his skin; it’s sticking to him like craft paste. She hopes he won’t be stupid enough to tell their mother.

  “What?” Louise turns her head toward Emery.

  “Mom,” Anna says. She wants to stave off any impulse Emery might have to out their father. “Did I show you the clothes I got?”

  “Why’d you grunt?” Louise asks Emery.

  “I was thinking about how hard it is to wake up with a baby in the night,” he says. Anna thinks he’s lying, although earlier in the day he did tell Louise about the plans to have a baby. Louise seemed as uninterested as she was with Blue and Esmé when they were first born.

  “You were not thinking about that,” Louise says.

  “I was thinking about Portia’s marriage,” he tries again. Louise jerks her head toward Portia. Today is the first day she’s had the force to jerk her head.

  “Sweetie,” Louise says. “I forgot about your marriage. Can you believe that? This whole week I completely forgot.”

  “You’ve been on morphine, Mom,” Anna says. She opens her purse and pulls out a pack of red licorice. “You forgot your own identity.”

  “Yeah,” Portia says. “Our little brother, Schlomo, was here, and you even forgot that you gave birth to him. You sent him away telling him to go back to the kibbutz he came from.”

  “Yeah,” Buzzy says. “And your Stinky came by, some twenty-year-old with a mustache, and you forgot that he was your lover!” Emery and Portia look at their father with the same snarling smile. Anna guesses they’re disturbed that Buzzy, who has a Stinky himself, would make a joke like that.

  “I think it’s only a Stinky if it’s a girl,” Anna says, and she spins into thought on what the best name for a male Stinky would be. Stink Stick?

  “Yeah, yeah,” Louise says. “Seriously, Portia was heartbroken and I completely forgot.”

  “I think we all sort of forgot,” Emery says. Anna wants to huff. Clearly he has forgotten that a moment ago he claimed he was thinking about Portia’s marriage. And what about the revelation in the barn?! The entire family, save Louise, has devoted plenty of time to Portia’s heartbreak, Anna decides.

  “We didn’t forget,” Alejandro says, then he turns toward Portia. “I think you’re doing amazingly well. Considering.” Anna disagrees. Portia has seemed about as comfortable and relaxed as someone who has red fire ants crawling over their skin.

  “You’ll meet someone else,” Buzzy says to Portia. “You won’t be single long. You’re a beautiful girl.” Portia shrugs and forks her fingers into her fine, brown hair.

  “What if she were ugly like me?” Anna says. Anna believes that everyone in the family considers Portia to be prettier than she, even though her boyfriends have always told her that she is prettier than her sister. She agrees with her family, but thinks it would be nice if for once, in any arena, they preferred her to Portia.

  “Yeah, what if I were ugly like Anna? Would anyone love me then?” Portia is laughing now.

  “You’re both beautiful girls,” Buzzy says. “If Anna weren’t with Brian she would meet someone else right away, too.”

  “She seems to meet them even when she’s with Brian,” Portia says, and Louise laughs. Anna hates how her mother always finds the blatant outing of Anna’s compulsions funny.

  “Okay, okay,” Anna says. Licorice is sticking out of her mouth like a long, red cigarette. “I admit I’ve fucked up in the past. But never again.” Even Anna herself knows this isn’t true. Although, she has been faithful for almost a year now. As long as phone sex doesn’t count as a cheat.

  “Everyone’s allowed one big fuckup,” Louise says. She squeezes her eyes shut, as if she’s in sudden pain.

  “You okay, Mom?” Emery asks.

  “I keep getting these shooting jabs down my arm,” Louise says.

  “Which arm?” Buzzy asks.

  “Never mind! I’m sick of me. We were talking about Portia.”

  “I don’t want to talk about me,” Portia says.

  “We can talk about me,” Anna says. “I want to show you the clothes I got at the store.”

  “You should do a fashion show,” Alejandro says, and he lifts his hand and does a little flip, like something a model might do.

  “We should all do one,” Emery says.

  Louise smiles. “Yes. I want a fashion show.”

  A nurse comes in the room. She smiles and has curly hair that also seems to be smiling. The nurses on this floor are much cheerier than the nurses in intensive care. She wants to give Louise a bath.

  “I came in early this morning and she didn’t want it then,” the nurse says to Buzzy.

  “Why didn’t you want a bath this morning?!” Buzzy asks. “Who wouldn’t want a sponge bath first thing in the morning?!”

  “I was eating!” Louise says.

  “You ate?” Anna asks. Since the heart attack no one has seen Louise eat anything other than what one of the intensive care nurses spoon-fed her each night.

  “Yeah,” Louise says. “It was so good I didn’t want to stop for the bath.”

  “What was it?” Anna asks.

  “Cream of wheat and toast.”

  “Grain and grain?” Portia says.

  “You kids go get dressed and take your time. I’ll have a sponge bath, and when I’m done, you can do the fashion show.”

  Beyond the cardiac wing, down the hall, are men’s and women’s bathrooms. Anna and Portia go in one bathroom, the boys in the other. Anna is in one stall and Portia is in the stall beside her.

  “What did you get?” Anna asks. She was in such a buying frenzy, she never even noticed her sister in the store with her. Anna loves shopping. It takes her out of her head in the same way as sex, or drugs, or being in love.

  “I only bought the one dress,” Portia says. Anna looks at her sister’s feet below the stall divider. Her red toenail polish is chipped at the ends, as if her toes grew out of the polish. Anna thinks her own long, naked toes look better than that. Portia once told her that women’s unpainted toenails remind her of testicles: a part of the body that looks almost foreign in how unappealing it is, like prehistoric insects, and albino deep-sea creatures. Anna totally disagrees. She rather have her prehistoric, testicle-looking toes than Portia’s half-painted slatternly toes.

  Portia’s clothes are being flung over the beige panel that separates their two stalls. Anna wonders why she doesn’t hang them from the hook inside the door. And then it is quiet and still beside her as Anna focuses on zipping the stretchy, short black skirt she bought and tucking in the shimmering glove-tight top that goes with it. Anna steps out of the stall and stares at herself in the mirror. There is a dusty white spot near the hem of the skirt. Anna takes a piece of sandpapery paper towel, wets it, and rubs at the spot. The towel crumbles into little brown ants on the skirt that she brushes away with her hand.

  “I think there’s a cum spot on this skirt,” Anna says. Portia doesn’t respond.

  “God,” Anna says, looking at her face in the mirror, turning from angle
to angle. “Did I ever tell you about that time that I gave Randy Freeman a hand job in the janitor’s closet at school and he came all over my black pants and I couldn’t get it out? I swear, it was like there was an iron-on cloud on my pants.”

  The stall door opens and a stiff-haired woman in a pantsuit steps out. Her face is white. Her hands are shaking as she washes them. Anna looks over at the stall Portia had been in and sees that the clothes are no longer flung over the divider. She wants to laugh and she wants to leave the bathroom but she is somehow stuck in place with the glue of embarrassment.

  “How do you know Randy Freeman?” the woman asks. Anna thinks this woman might be about to cry. Her wet eyes make Anna feel wobbly, like she’s standing on the edge of a cliff (a feeling Anna doesn’t really mind).

  “We were in high school together. I’m really sorry if I offended you. I thought you were my sister. I didn’t know anyone else was in the bathroom. I’m so sorry.” Anna is already imaging how she’ll frame this story when she tells her sister, brother, and Alejandro.

  “Were you at Dos Pueblos Senior High?” the woman asks.

  “Yes.” Anna flips through the mental Rolodex in her mind, trying to find this woman’s face. She must have been a teacher at Dos Pueblos, or maybe she worked in the office. “Do you know Randy Freeman?”

  “He’s my son,” the woman says quickly, her lips as tight as stretched rubber bands. She walks out of the bathroom before Anna can speak. Once the bathroom door closes, Anna doubles over laughing. She waits a moment before leaving. There’s no way she wants to pass Randy Freeman’s mother in the hall.

  Portia, Emery, and Alejandro are waiting in the corridor as Anna walks out. Emery is in a suit that makes him look like he’s in the band the Talking Heads. Alejandro is in a fitted knit shirt that hangs so effortlessly you know it’s well made.

  “Oh, my God!” Anna is whisper-laughing. She grabs her sister’s hand and Alejandro’s hand, then pulls them down the hall and around the corner to a stairway. Emery rushes along with them.

  “What?!” Emery asks.

  “You won’t believe what happened!”

  “What?” Alejandro has already started tittering, even though he doesn’t yet know what’s so funny.

  “I thought Portia and I were the only ones in there.”

  “Oh god,” Portia says. “A woman walked in as I walked out.”

  “Yes, and I fucking started talking to her!”

  Alejandro and Emery burst out laughing. Portia’s eyes are wide and her mouth is half-open in anticipation.

  “What did you say?” Portia asks.

  Anna relays the story of the cum spot, Randy Freeman, the hand job, and the fact that the listener was Randy Freeman’s mother.

  “NO WAY!” Portia says, finally laughing.

  “I swear!” Anna starts cackling. Tears are running down her face. This makes Portia laugh harder.

  “No fucking way!” Emery says.

  “Yes!” Anna says. It is the only word she can get out.

  And just then, when they are euphoric and joyful, the social worker who had told on the family to the nurse, reporting that they weren’t a caring enough family, comes down the stairs and pauses in front of them. Anna looks at her, her long rectangular head, and starts laughing even harder.

  “How’s your mother?” the social worker asks when they are quiet enough to listen.

  “Do you know our mother?” Emery asks. He does not seem to recognize her.

  “She’s fine,” Anna says. “She’s been moved to the regular cardiac unit.”

  “That’s very good,” the social worker says. “That’s very good news.”

  When she walks away, Emery leans in and asks, “Who was that?”

  Anna, Alejandro, and Portia are laughing so hard they can’t even get out the words to tell him.

  Louise loves the fashion show. She applauds after each spin and even tries to whistle, although she doesn’t seem to have breath enough to do so. Buzzy is even more enthusiastic than Louise. He grabs Portia after her exaggerated model’s jaunt around the room, gives her kisses and a deep, rocking hug. Anna wonders if this is Buzzy’s way of asking her to forgive him for his Stinky.

  Portia tugs herself away from their father and Anna sees that there’s a steel wall in front of her sister’s heart. She won’t even smile at Buzzy. Anna knows the wall is there to protect their mother, but, really, their mother doesn’t need protection—she is, has always been, a fiercely independent woman. Portia needs to grow up, get over it, move on. Marriage isn’t a charming little tête-à-tête between a couple in love. It’s an arrangement in a tiny unified country of two citizens, with a constitution that is in constant negotiation. And an affair, Anna thinks, is not a declaration of war. It’s not even an incursion. It’s a mild uprising. An act of rebellion. An irritation. If her sister understood all this she could forgive their father. And maybe then she could forgive her husband, too.

  Chapter 20

  1986

  By the end of his freshman year in college Emery had been with many girls, stacking them up like a string of pearls. And then his sophomore year, things began to change. Emery met a cologne-ad handsome guy named Joseph, and together they started the Bi-College Film Club (funding came from both Haverford and its sister school, Bryn Mawr). Joseph came up with the name when he and Emery were eating pastries at a bakery in town, and then, seconds later, told Emery that he was bisexual. Emery laughed. He loved the secret pun of bi referring to both the joint-college project and the sexual orientation of one of the founders. Joseph’s bisexuality intrigued Emery. It seemed gutsy and cool and made Emery want to spend more time with Joseph and less time with his brown-haired, skinny girlfriend who had the name of a French writer (Anaïs) and a black belt in karate.

  After the first two screenings (Seventh Seal and 8½), one of the film club members proposed that prior to all future screenings the eleven members of the film club must take a few bong hits together. The movement was passed by a vote of ten to one, the one being Jenny Pepper, who claimed she loved doing bong hits but thought there was something wrong with making them mandatory. Emery voted in favor of the bong, not because he was for it, but because as director of the club he felt the need to be current, hip, contemporary. The truth was, in spite of the abundance of pot in his life, he had still never gotten high.

  Joseph brought his bong to the next meeting and Emery brought the bag of weed he had purchased (with a portion of the membership dues) from a guy on his dorm floor who dealt on demand (he kept nothing on hand, but took and filled orders for any drug). The Film Club sat in a circle on the floor in front of the stadium seating of Stokes Auditorium and passed around the bong. Joseph was to Emery’s right, their knees touching and hands brushing as Joseph handed him the packed bong.

  Emery held the bong up like a torch and said, “This meeting of the Bi-College Film Club will officially come to order. All those in support of the club and tonight’s movie, Hiroshima Mon Amour, must smoke the peace pipe as way of committing yourself to the experience of appreciating good movies.”

  Emery put the bong against his lips, then stuck out his palm, waiting for a lighter. Joseph placed a red Bic in his hand and Emery lit and inhaled. He knew exactly what to do; he had seen this act thousands of times. And although he had never before been interested in pot, there was something magical about Joseph—his open bisexuality, the black sideburns he grew at a time when no one had sideburns, the fruit-colored Izod Lacoste cardigans he wore casually thrown over his shoulders, and the fact that he only got A’s—that made Emery feel like he was floating in a safe, happy world where pot was as wholesome as fresh-cut apple slices. This wasn’t his mother’s pot-smoking, where you lay on a couch in a dark room, watched Mary Hartman, and read The New Yorker during commercials. And this wasn’t his sisters’ pot-smoking, where you rub yourself out into a viscous smear of a human, then splatter yourself against any half-decent guy within range. This was thinking pot. Film pot. Jose
ph-who-always-smelled-like-spicy-soapy-aftershave pot.

  Emery listened to the phlegmy gurgle as he inhaled, then passed the bong to Joseph. It made its way around the circle in relative silence, each person smiling slightly as he or she finished his or her turn. There wasn’t much to it after the first hit. Emery felt slightly loose, like he’d been massaged or had just gotten out of the bath. And then, when the bong made its second round, he discovered the magic of being high. It was if the edges of his consciousness had been sanded down into butter-soft rounds. His daylong worry about the picture and sound quality of the reel he had obtained of Hiroshima Mon Amour dissolved. It was either of good quality or it wasn’t. So be it.

  There were smatterings of laughter about nothing in particular as everyone made their way to their seats. Emery and Joseph went to the projection booth where they sat in the sultry red light and threaded the film. When Emery pushed the play button, Joseph put his hand on Emery’s and held it there.

  “Hey,” Emery said, his whisper so low it was more like a breath.

  “Hey,” Joseph said, and he leaned in and kissed him. It felt sparkly and clean and unlike any kiss Emery had ever had. Every time Emery kissed Anaïs he felt like he had when he was six years old and made the kid around the corner, Mary-Louise, ride her bike in circles in the garage naked: it was intriguing simply because it was so unnatural. When he kissed Joseph there wasn’t the strange curiosity of the foreign. It felt perfectly normal.