Invasion of the Blatnicks

by Neil S. Plakcy

  Rita was full of questions about the flight and Steve’s life in New York as the Bermans walked through the crowded lobby, passing families of Orthodox Jews in long black coats and Indians in multi-colored saris and sandals. The store windows were full of cheap souvenirs for absent-minded travelers. Harold pointed to a display and said, “Look, Rita. That t-shirt that says ‘Kid for rent - cheap.’ Let’s buy one for Steve.”

  “I’ll wear it if we can get you one that says ‘Dad for rent’ too,” Steve said.

  “Nobody’s buying any T-shirts,” Rita said. “Keep going.”

  Steve had long before accepted the ways his father had of showing love-- the backhanded compliments, the gentle sarcasm, the exaggerated displays of anger. He had always been able to let his father’s gibes slide off his back. Even though his father joked about trading Steve in, he knew that none of his cousins or the children of his parents’ friends could come as close as he did to satisfying his father’s exacting standards.

  But the rejections always hurt, at least a little. Every time his father said, “I told you, Rita, we should have gotten a dog. But no, you insisted on having a baby,” Steve grew another thin layer of skin over his heart. But now that he’d been fired, he felt too vulnerable and shaky to let his father’s comments slip away. The only way he could fight back was quip for quip, joke for joke.

  “Hey, Dad, how many Jewish fathers does it take to change a light bulb?”

  “I don’t know,” Harold said.

  “Two. One to change the bulb and the other to give a lecture about how long light bulbs used to last when he was a kid.”

  “Very funny,” Rita said, in a way that forestalled further comment. “There’s the exit.” She pressed forward, leaving Harold and Steve fanned out behind her.

  Rita Berman was sixty years old, and though her brown hair had turned gray and there were laugh lines around her mouth and wrinkles across her forehead, she had the vigor and vitality of a younger woman. She had been a homemaker until Steve was thirteen, but when he became a teenager, silent and secretive, and Harold was promoted to a management job with a lot of overtime, she was restless and bored. So she started decorating houses, and found in herself a talent for understanding other people and the kind of homes they wanted.

  The Bermans walked outside, through the heat and fumes of the covered drop-off lanes, dodging rent-a-car minivans and cruising taxis. Cuban women dressed in nurses’ uniforms shook white cans filled with change at over-dressed Yankee tourists who took them for part of the quaint Latin flavor of Miami. French Canadians argued with each other over the best way to get to Hollywood, and Colombian drug couriers with cocaine-filled condoms in their bowels sweated and looked forward to toilets in safe houses.

  It was a typical Miami day, sunny and nearly cloudless. Two lanes of the highway were closed for a never-ending road construction project, the chunks of torn asphalt gleaming in the heat like black diamonds. In the distance, a wavering curtain of steam seemed to rise from the pavement.

  Harold pointed out the new condo construction to Steve. Some were gated communities of Mediterranean-style townhouses and garden apartments that kept the makers of orange-red barrel roof tiles in business. Others were gleaming towers of glass and marble, with balconies curving around their sinuous facades like Salome’s veils.

  Steve was more interested in the giant inflatable rooster on top of a restaurant that advertised early bird specials and the billboard featuring an enormous nose and the slogan, “Groceries so fresh you just have to follow your nose.” The real estate courses he had taken in business school had concentrated on the movement of large sums of capital, not on the individual specifics of home purchase or a particular market, but his father never understood that. Harold had bought and sold houses and condos in his life, and he applied that knowledge to Steve’s experience, in a transitive reasoning process that was typical of his thinking as an engineer.

  “All right, Harold, Steve isn’t interested in condos,” Rita said finally. She twisted around in the front seat to be able to face her son. “So tell me, how is the job?”

  Steve had not lied to his parents since the last time they had talked about sex, when he was seventeen and his mother was sure he was still a virgin. For the most part he had been able to avoid direct questions about sensitive subjects, like drug and alcohol use, sex, and why he insisted on going to business school instead of being a lawyer like his parents wanted.

  “I just finished a big project,” Steve said. There, that wasn’t a lie. “An office park outside Atlanta.”

  “Your father went to Atlanta once.” Rita looked back to Harold. “Wasn’t it Atlanta? Where they had that big electrical fire?”

  “That was Altoona,” Harold said. “Altoona, Pennsylvania. Not Atlanta, Georgia.” He shook his head. “Your mother.”

  “Well, then, maybe we’ll go to Atlanta sometime. It’s nice, this office park?”

  “Very nice,” Steve said.

  “The office market in Miami stinks,” Harold said, looking back at Steve. “I was just reading in the paper how bad. I think I saved the article for you.” Harold often sent Steve newspaper clippings about recent home sales or how to hire a real estate agent.

  Steve read these articles diligently, though with a slight sense of confusion, as if they represented obscure material that might be included on a final exam. And in a sense they did, because Harold, in his own way, was still trying to prepare Steve for the world ahead, a world in which his son would be successful, a home owner and real estate tycoon.

  Steve did not know if he would ever be able to fulfill his parents’ dreams for him; they wanted so much.

  The Bermans lived in Aventura, in a spacious apartment overlooking the blue ribbon of the Intracoastal. About a block away, they stopped for a light next to a brigade of elderly men in electric carts. They wore matching leather jackets and helmets with an insignia on them. When Steve looked closer he could see they were called “Hell’s Alte Kockers.” While they waited for the light to change, they revved their engines and gave each other the thumbs up.

  The parking lot was crammed with rental Fords, Geos and Chevrolets in a rainbow of colors. Steve had to look twice at the plastic flamingos on the front lawn-- someone had rearranged them into an obscene position. “Grandchildren,” Rita said when Steve pointed them out to her.

  Harold negotiated his way into his parking space, zigzagging past an elderly woman with a shopping cart full of paper towels and a harried young father with three kids on leashes. Rita was out of the car as soon as it came to a stop, and she was halfway across the parking lot before Steve had unloaded his bag from the trunk.

  “You in a hurry, Rita?” Harold yelled to her. “You hear the toilet calling your name?”

  Rita stopped and turned around. She waited for Steve to catch up. “To your father, retirement means you have the whole day free,” she said to him. “He retired. I still cook and clean the house and pick up his dirty clothes. I gave up a career in interior design to become a full-time maid. And he wonders why I’m always busy.”

  “No, Rita, I wonder why you’re always talking,” Harold said as he caught up to them. Rita took off again immediately.

  Rita and Harold Berman had probably spent at least twenty-five years of their thirty-one-year marriage bickering. When his Uncle Jerry and Aunt Mimi split up, Steve was fourteen. As he walked toward the condo, Steve remembered going into his parents’ bedroom then and asking them if they were going to get a divorce too. “Why should we?” Rita had asked.

  “Uncle Jerry and Aunt Mimi are getting one,” Steve had said. “And you and Daddy fight just as much as they do.”

  “We’re not getting a divorce,” Harold had said. “Your mother and I love each other very much, and if you hear us arguing, remember that’s just the way we talk to each other.”

  Rita stopped to wait for Steve next to a bank of impatiens and hibiscus by the front door of the condo building.

  “I’m goi
ng upstairs to start dinner,” she said. “Your Aunt Mimi, Sheryl, Sheldon and Mrs. Blatnick are coming for dinner at five. Then we have services at seven-thirty.” She turned around and waved at the security guard, and the electric door slid open.

  Steve stood in the lobby and waited for his father to catch up. It was blessedly cool there, a glistening expanse of beige marble interrupted only by strategic placements of silk flowers and tiny Louis XVI chairs trimmed in gilt. In the window, the condo board had placed a display of twinkling lights that spelled out “Happy Rosh Hashanah.”

  Rita was still waiting for the elevator when Steve and his father rounded the corner, and she and Harold continued to squabble on the ride upstairs. In the hallway an elderly woman in a nightgown strode forcefully toward them, pumping her arms. A stopwatch hung on a cord around her neck. “Keep up the good work, Mrs. Feigenblau,” Rita said. “This is my son. He’s here for the holidays.”

  “Mazel tov,” Mrs. Feigenblau said, striding past. Steve took a deep breath. He would not crack, he told himself. He would not tell his parents he had lost his job until he had found a new one. He had spent so much effort trying to create a personality that could prove to his father that he was capable and qualified, struggling for good grades in school and a good start to his career. He did not want to disappoint his parents, and he was not prepared to admit that his father’s low opinion of him might be rooted in truth.

  As Steve unpacked, Rita kept popping in to tell him about the neighbors, about the relatives, about his father. Though she had retired from her design practice, she had kept her hand in by helping her condo neighbors with decorating and remodeling plans. She knew a dozen architects in Miami and had secured access for herself to the trade shows and wholesale houses of the design district.

  She had decorated the den in browns and whites, with nubbly fabrics and imitation zebra rugs, to create a masculine retreat for Harold, and to give herself a break from the peach and pale green of the rest of the apartment. The sofa bed was leather trimmed with brass and had thick cushions.

  “If you could help me unpack the Lenox, I’d really appreciate it, sweetheart,” she said, hovering in the doorway. “You know your father. He’s afraid if he lifted a finger around here to help he’d break it.”

  Steve pulled a manila folder out of his suitcase. His resume was inside, and he hoped to get a few minutes while he was in Florida to update it and figure out what he would say about leaving his job. Reluctantly he put it aside and stood up. “How come you invited Aunt Mimi anyway? It’s not like she’s still related to us.”

  “She was once married to my brother,” Rita said as Steve trailed her into the living room. “Her children are your cousins. As far as I’m concerned she’s still family.” She sat down on the floor in front of the china cabinet, an expensive antique she had bought years before at a designers’ discount, and started handing quilted cases filled with plates, bowls, cups and saucers up to Steve.

  “So what’s she doing down here?” Steve asked. “Has she retired too?”

  Rita made a face. “She has nothing to retire from. Her mother is here for the winter and she and Sheryl are visiting.”

  “And Sheldon?”

  Sheldon was Mimi’s brother.

  “And Sheldon,” Rita said.

  Mimi’s father, who was always called the late Mr. Blatnick, had been a wholesaler of ladies’ better lingerie, supplying many of New York’s finest department stores. He had left his widow and children enough money so that, according to Rita, none of them ever had to pick up pennies from the sidewalk. She was vague, however, on exactly how much money that might be.

  Steve stacked the quilted cases of china on the dining room table. Sun streamed in from the western windows and he could hear the air conditioner humming in the closet next to the front door. Rita had turned it down to 68 when they came in. It was almost like being in New York -- clear and cold.

  Rita stood up, holding onto a chair for support, then sat down with her back to the window. She and Steve began unpacking the cases, taking out seven of each dish, while she filled him in on everything his aunts, uncles and cousins had done since he last visited, along with some news from the condo association and family friends. Finally she said, “If I finish this, can you get the Madeira tablecloth out of the hall closet?”

  “Sure,” Steve said. “I know you always like to give me the tall person jobs.” He found the tablecloth, white linen with lace inserts at the corners and in the center, at the top of a narrow closet next to the guest bathroom. Underneath it were stacked a dozen matching napkins, each with a lace insert.

  “I bought this tablecloth when I was on my honeymoon with your father,” Rita said, when Steve brought it back to her.

  “I know, Mom. You tell me every time you get it out.” Harold and Rita were married during World War II, and honeymooned in Washington D. C. At the end of a long weekend, Harold, who was in the Air Force, left Rita alone in New York as he flew off to England to evaluate German technology. Rita had often told stories of holding that tablecloth when she read her husband’s letters from overseas.

  “It doesn’t hurt you to listen.” Rita shook the cloth out onto the table and Steve helped her settle it around the corners. “I saw it in a store on Connecticut Avenue and I had to have it, but it was so expensive. Your father saw how much I loved it and that afternoon he went back to the store and bought it for me.”

  She folded a napkin into fourths and laid it at the head of the table. “It was the first time I really felt married.” She smiled at her son. “I’ll finish here. You go wake your father and see that he puts on something that doesn’t clash.”

  Steve watched his father sleep for a moment before he woke him. Harold’s face was smooth and unlined, even at sixty-five. It was the face of a man who had been for many years oblivious to the larger problems of daily life. He was an electrical engineer who had grown up in rural New Hampshire, a place where there were few Jews and even fewer engineers. He was precise, methodical, and interested in minor details, and the Bermans’ home had always been filled with little gadgets he made, like the Lucite top on the coffee jar that dispensed exactly one tablespoon.

  Steve pulled on his father’s leg and said, “Wake up, Dad.”

  Harold opened his eyes, yawned, and said, “You’re home.”

  “That’s right. Come on, let’s go in and watch TV.”

  In the living room, Rita had catered to her own excellent taste. The room was a symphony of pastels, highlighted when appropriate by a bright blue throw pillow, a painting of poppies, a tasteful arrangement of silk flowers. The furniture was white wicker, which Rita thought was light and airy and so appropriate for the climate.

  Louvered wooden shutters protected the slipcovers and the carpet from direct sunlight, and overhead fans lazily swirled the air-conditioned air. Harold walked over to the television, cleverly concealed in an old wooden kas Rita had bought in the Pennsylvania Dutch country when Steve was a teenager, and immediately tuned in to a program about the way Tasmanian devils raise their young. He seemed to Steve to have a knack for finding a program about marsupials somewhere on cable at any time of the day or night, as if they subscribed to a special channel.

  As he watched the wombat family, Steve thought about his own. Though he was an only child, he came from a big family. At every religious and secular event, he was surrounded by dozens of cousins, from grizzled veterans of cookouts and caravan vacations to new recruits barely out of diapers. His aunts and uncles, first and second cousins, and assorted in-laws and lost souls filled the Seder table and got in the way of the Afikomen hunt. He could not remember a time when he was the only one young enough to ask the four questions.

  The Blatnicks were different from the rest of the Bermans’ cousins. Even Harold’s relatives, who had started out poorer than dirt, had all made modest successes for themselves. They were doctors, lawyers, and businessmen, and their kids grew up in nice suburban houses and went to decent colleges. But
nothing in the Blatnicks’ world was as it appeared on the surface. They existed in a shadowy realm of impressive deals that never quite came through, imaginary lawsuits against famous people they felt had slighted them, and broken-down models of classic cars. None of the Blatnicks were college material; at most they had a few college threads running through them.

  Steve’s cousin Sheryl was a month younger than he was, and she was about as intelligent as cole slaw. Steve remembered how they used to compare notes about school when they were kids, and how Sheryl’s class always seemed to move slower than Steve’s had.

  “Sheryl’s class hasn’t even dissected frogs yet,” Steve told Rita after one family reunion when they were both thirteen. ”She’s probably not allowed to handle sharp objects.”

  He was laughing about that when the doorbell rang.

  3 – The Tablecloth

  Steve opened the door a little too quickly and since old Mrs. Blatnick’s brittle, crabbed hand was on the knob, he nearly pulled her off her feet. She was a short, stooped lady who obviously hadn’t drunk enough milk when she was a kid because her head stuck away from her body like a turtle’s. Her hair was a shade of yellow never found in nature, teased up into a high bun and congealed with enough hair spray to protect a fleet of beauty pageant contestants.

  Her daughter Mimi was right behind her, still arguing with her about what floor the Bermans lived on. “I told you, Ma,” she said. “You never want to believe me. I told you it was fifteen, and here they are.” She and Rita touched cheeks.

  “All right, Mimi, that’s enough,” Mrs. Blatnick said. “Next time we’ll leave you in the car.”

  “Let me look at you,” Rita said to Mimi. Even though Mimi pampered herself with spa treatments and facials and weekly pedicures, her face had the tight, drawn look of women who had spent too much time in the sun. “You look marvelous. And I love your bag.” Mimi was carrying a green leather pocketbook in the shape of an alligator, with the handle linking the right front and rear feet. The jaws were buttoned shut.