Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1)

by P. G. Lengsfelder

  “She’s interested in some of the things I’m interested in.”

  “Like?”

  “Social science.”

  “You tracked her down because she’s one of a million people in this city interested in social science?” She unclipped a pen from her shirt pocket.

  “No, because of these.” Off came my shades then I replaced them. “If you’ve met her you know she’s very self-conscious about her lazy eye.”

  Detective Gergis’ shoulder dipped, more of a spasm. Hang a basket around her neck and you could’ve used her forehead as a backboard. She waited for an explanation, pen suspended. She clicked it open. I was only seconds ahead of her.

  “Why me and Zoe? I’d seen her and, if you must know, I thought she was cute. What did Zoe say?”

  “That’s between me and Miss Lowenstein. You’re aware that someone hijacked a Times Square billboard.”

  “I’d heard something like that. Saw the headlines. Didn’t sound too important.”

  “Important to the billboard company. Twenty-seven minutes of Kate Upton interrupted.”

  “Really.” I didn’t hide my disdain.

  “It’s amazing what’s worth $5,000 today.” The detective hinting at accord.

  “Five K for twenty-seven minutes of Kate Upton?”

  “She’s more expensive. This was just for the lost media time.” She fixated on the Royal Crowns in the wastebasket. “You’re sure about the bone marrow?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Zoe Lowenstein.”

  “What I know of Zoe, she’s a very nice person. I don’t think she was attracted to me. It’s not the first time.” I waited as she slid more papers around her desk. “Anything else?”

  “Where were you that evening?”

  “What evening?”

  “Christmas Eve.”

  “In my apartment.”

  “Anybody with you? Anybody who can corroborate where you were?”

  I had to think a moment. “Actually,” I said, marveling, “yes, the president of my homeowner’s association, a woman named Helen Dorward. I’m afraid she doesn’t think very highly of me. Also a man named Malcolm, a patient at the Metzinger Clinic.”

  “Really, two alibis?” She jotted something on the back of her hand.

  “Do you need anything else?” Get me out of here.

  “Why would they need bone marrow?”

  “Not my field of study.”

  “What is your field of study?”

  Now I’d done it! “Lab technician, pharmaceuticals. Anything else?”

  A woman in uniform dropped a new stack of papers on her shale-shifting desktop. “Not for the time being. Answer your phone next time.”

  She ushered me into the lobby; I didn’t look back, eyes straight ahead. I reached the street and began walking —not clear in what direction, just get away. My phone buzzed. My first thought: she wants me to come back in. They found another link to me. I considered letting the phone buzz —at least until I was several blocks away and could offer to come in tomorrow, while I sorted things out. But it was buzzing against my chest. “Shit.”

  I stopped. People pushed past me in both directions.

  “Yes?” I answered without even looking.

  “Eunis, damn am I glad I found you girl. I need your help.”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Lyle. Look, I can’t talk long, they said I only have three minutes. You’re my one call.”

  “What?”

  “I need a lawyer and I need you to bail me out. It’s bullshit. My dick boss thinks I took some cash, but I didn’t. I only borrowed it. I was gonna give it back next shift.”

  “Your boss?

  “I’ve been delivering pizza. Here in the city. Ya gotta bail me out. I’m at the 82nd Street precinct. Eunis?”

  From one precinct to the next, venues I could do without. “Yes?”

  “You gotta get me outta here.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Roddy exited the holding area. “He’s out, Eunis. Bail covered. They’re releasing him.”

  “Thanks, I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “I’m glad you did. My chance to make it up to you.”

  Lyle brushed himself off as he slammed open the door into the lobby. “Complete bullshit.”

  “Let’s get you both home.” Roddy held open the door to the street.

  Home? Not even in my own body was I home anymore. I hadn’t considered the next stop. Had barely taken a breath. The others halted with me, as if I was somehow in control.

  “Bloomfield, that’s a Jewish name, huh?” Lyle shoved a bright yellow and black-striped “Hollywood Pizza” hat into his back pocket. “I guess most lawyers are.”

  Roddy responded with a generous smile. “So you’re Eunis’s brother.”

  I came to the surface. “Half-brother.”

  “Not only a Jew,” Roddy said placing his hand firmly on Lyle’s shoulder, “but half black too.”

  “Go on!” said Lyle. “You are not—”

  “I can make it home on my own, thanks.” I hoped they both noticed my uncompromising tone. I wanted them out of my sight, both of them, until I could figure something. Figure what, believe what? Was I going to believe anything my kinetic brain told me? It wasn’t like my kidney was acting up. There were treatments for that. Pills. But curing my thoughts?

  “You’re very kind, Roddy. I don’t know how to properly thank you.” Actually, I did . . . Eunis! Not everything is carnal. Yes, but gratitude could be sensual. “Lyle would thank you too, if he thought about it. Wouldn’t you, Lyle?”

  “Well, sure.” Lyle seemed bewildered.

  Roddy leaned in front of him, looked directly at me. “Have dinner with me. Let’s talk.”

  “I’m pretty hungry myself.” Lyle scanned us, back and forth. “But ahh, I’m a little tight on cash . . .”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Roddy’s arms hung to his sides. No armor, no pretense.

  “Course if I could borrow something from you, Sis, I could pay you back.”

  “Sis?!” I fixed Lyle with bemusement; he closed his mouth. I turned to Roddy, his aging yet enduring face. Don’t look away. “I don’t know who you are . . . ” I explored his terrain: the vibrancy of his slightly rucked skin, a light tan, the color of fall flame grass plumes.

  “I’m not so hard to understand.” Even then whimsy teetered on his lips, like he was appreciating my obstinance.

  “Well, I’m grateful for what you’ve done.”

  His eyes offered an unhurried mutability, like the waterways that freed my body, frictionless and searching me.

  “You keep showing up and I really appreciate it.”

  “You would do the same.”

  “How ‘bout the dinner we was talkin’ about?” Lyle clueless.

  “It’s been a long day, Lyle.” I turned to Roddy. “Please understand, and tell Elizabeth, hi.” I started down the street.

  “You’re always walking away,” he called.

  I waved my arm above my head.

  Roddy told Lyle, “Go take care of your sister.”

  “We have time for dinner?”

  “Go!”

  Where to head next, The Octagon or Levi and Nan’s? Unfortunately Roddy’s hillside was the only destination that appealed to me.

  “Somethin’s wrong with your phone.” Lyle hustled up to me. “I been tryin’ for more an a week. It’s blocked or somethin’. Finally gave up.”

  Like it was my fault he was in town and already in trouble.

  “Anyways, what do ya think about some dinner?”

  I just kept walking, still wasn’t sure where. Maybe I hoped he’d fall away, like an ionized atom. But he kept tagging along.

  “I’m powerful hungry, Sis.”

  Rolf Lund liked my idea. How to get back to him? Or had that possibility been lost? I pulled my hair away from my neck. Maybe the evening air would revive me.

  “After some
food can I stay with you because—”

  “No.” I finally looked at him.

  “My boss threw me out.”

  “Mine too,” I said. “Your boss, you live with your boss?”

  “Cheryl. A woman. She’s holding my Martin ransom.”

  I considered the inference. I decided I was in no position to judge. “You’ll have to pay off your bail. You’re not sticking Roddy with it.”

  “Course not. He’ll get his money. Jews always do.”

  “You ungrateful son of a bitch!” I slapped him full palm, wasn’t sorry at all. In fact, I hoped it hurt. He was stunned, but probably not the first time for Lyle.

  “Same bitch raised you.” He rubbed his cheek. “So, okay, this guy’s your friend, sorry, but I gotta find a place to stay tonight. And I’m real hungry.”

  This ass was actually related to me. What next? Focus. Down the street was . . . the oasis! “I’ve got just the place. But you’ll have to put up with black people. You think you can handle that?”

  “O’ course. I ain’t got nothin’ against black people. They’re some of the best musicians in the world.”

  “Come on.” Half way down the block we stepped into Ruthie’s Roti. Around my heart frequencies started percolating.

  “Welcome.” He was tall, African, in his thirties. The veins in his forehead bulged. “What is your pleasure?”

  It wasn’t just that he spoke crisply, almost like an Englishman, but the quality of his voice was . . . cultured. I gave a head feint in Lyle’s direction. “He’s hungry.” Not, my brother’s hungry.

  “Sir?” he said to Lyle, revealing broad, unattractive gums. His hair was close-cropped with stunted dreads. A short black beard set off wide lips. “What can we get you?” He was freshly scrubbed, and on the way to the food I caught a hint of soap as I passed him. A pleasant face —almost handsome if he refrained from smiling.

  “Sistah doon-doos, you back!” A sudden gust, Ruthie chugged into the room. “Anthony, what they need?”

  “She and this gentleman just walked in.”

  “What’s that stuff over there?” Lyle pointed to the steaming chaffing dishes.

  “Curried goat,” said Anthony.

  “Thanks.” Lyle waved it off. “I can wait.”

  “What is your name, sistah?” Ruthie offered me a seat and patted my knee. “Good you back.”

  “Eunis.”

  Ruthie checked me, then Lyle. He was hoping for a place to rest his eyes but it wasn’t on this large albino woman.

  “I’m with her.” Lyle, still the little lost boy I remembered.

  “Yes,” Ruthie said disapprovingly, then returned to me. “What you think? Ready for room?” Her boulder-of-a head tipped skyward then back. She stood and held out her hand. “Come, c’mon. Just look.”

  “I’m not really—”

  “I’ll be heading to the museum in about ten minutes,” said Anthony puttering with the chafing dishes. “You okay here?”

  “Love you.” Ruthie threw him a kiss, her large arm flapping.

  “Love you.” He returned the kiss.

  She lifted me out of the chair and shuttled me toward a white flickering light around the corner. “You too,” she said nodding to Lyle.

  The beaded curtain bounced off my face and shoulders, sounding like rain as we moved through it. I questioned the cleanliness of those beads. The tempo around my heart escalated.

  “This Eunis, everyone,” announced Ruthie to the three women and the little boy seated around the oval Formica table. A TV was on in the background, the volume turned low, thankfully.

  Lyle shifted uncomfortably, head down.

  “Your name again?” Ruthie asked him.

  “Lyle. I’m her brother.”

  “Half-brother.” For the first time I noticed that Lyle’s cowboy shirt was streaked in sweat. Embarrassing.

  “Lyle,” repeated Ruthie to the group that had stopped gabbing and looked up at us intruders — except the little boy, who grunted and whacked his mound of rice with a large spoon.

  “Anthony Junior,” said the teenage girl next to the boy, ostensibly his very young mother, “you stop that.” The boy glanced at her and, as she looked back to me, went back to hammering his food. The mother needed to be firmer with her son.

  “Sorry.” She grabbed the spoon from her four-year-old.

  “Ow!” The TV threw a beige cast on the little fella’s skin.

  “This Simone.” Ruthie introduced the teenage mother. “And Vinnette and Brytney.”

  “What’s wrong with her face?” asked the little boy pointing at me. “Is she a duppy?”

  “No,” said Ruthie. “She our friend. She our sistah. But she carry a duppy with her.”

  “No such things as a duppy, Granma.” Simone put down her fork. “Don’t scare Junior.”

  “You don’t be so sure. When you grow, you see.” Ruthie faced the woman in the pink workout suit. “Vinnette understands, don’t you, child?” Vinnette’s thin spectacular face turned into the light, her sable hair pulled tight in a ponytail.

  I swallowed. She was that beautiful. It was a face you’d see in fashion advertising, except her neck had several unnatural lumps along it.

  Anthony Junior again grasped at the spoon and Simone caught his hand.

  “Ow! Ow!” cried the little boy and burst into tears. “Ow!”

  “What’s the matter with him?” asked Ruthie.

  “He says his hand’s been hurting.” Simone passed him the spoon but he kept crying.

  I leaned forward. “Can I see?”

  “You a doctor?” Brytney looked up from her food, searched for the glasses perched on her head.

  “No, but can I see?”

  Simone made sure with Ruthie, who affirmed with the slightest tip of her head. Anthony Junior wanted no part of me and leaned against his mother. “Let the lady look at your hands.”

  He stuck his free hand out, staying close to Simone.

  Carefully, I touched his hand and he winced. “That hurts?”

  He nodded.

  “And this?”

  “Ow.”

  His skin. He didn’t share skin tone with his mother or with Anthony, his dad, who I’d met in the outer room. “How old?”

  “Four and a couple months,” offered Simone. “Why?”

  “Have his hands always been this swollen?”

  “He’s been playing outside in the cold.”

  “And then in here where it’s pretty warm.”

  Junior pulled his hand away from me.

  “Yes, so what? What’s wrong?” Simone was quickly anxious.

  “Well, I could be wrong, of course, but—”

  “But what?” asked Ruthie.

  I faced Simone. Be gentle. “Have you or Anthony been tested for the HbS gene?”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “I could be wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  Don’t overly alarm them. “There’s a chance he has dactylitis, a form of sickle cell anemia. His hands are puffy, and look at his skin.” I reached for Anthony Junior’s face. Again he drew away from me. “It’s yellowish, can you see? Has it always been like that?”

  “No.” Simone began to well up.

  Brytney clutched Simone’s arm and pulled the glasses off her head, fixing me with anger. Ruthie came across the room, stood behind Simone, squeezing her shoulders. “Shush, shush,” she said. She’d lost her carefree demeanor.

  “No, it’s okay.” Don’t scare Anthony Junior. “There are two tests, a DNA test for you and Anthony Sr. and another —it’s called electrophoresis— for Anthony Jr. It tests hemoglobin, blood. If you and Anthony Sr. both have the HbS cell, there’s a chance Anthony Jr. has the—” The little boy and his mother both looked terrified. “It’s manageable, more now than ever.”

  “He’s sick, oh lord.” Ruthie slumped.

  “Even if he has it,” I tried to make eye contact with each of them, “he should be fine with tr
eatment. And the tests are mostly painless.”

  “Oh my god.” Simone hugged her child, fought back tears. Brytney covered her mouth.

  “Are the tests expensive?” Vinnette put an arm around Simone.

  Ruthie set doleful eyes on her great grandson. “We don have insurance.” She looked up. So many distraught faces, all watching me.

  “There’s equipment at the lab.” What was I saying!

  Brytney squinted. “You have the equipment?”

  “Could you?” asked Simone. “Please.”

  What had I just done? They were all mute yet pleading. “It’ll take a few days. I’ll do what I can.” But I knew that if I was right, I’d be unleashing financial problems that would cripple them —the whole family. And I thought of Momma’s admonition and how —tussers or not— I continued to bring trouble to everyone.

  “Eunis,” interrupted Lyle, “can we get goin’?”

  Even Ruthie could see my irritation, my rush of anger. “You can’t come with me, Lyle. That’s it.”

  “No,” Ruthie shook her head. “You right, bad idea.”

  He gave her a dirty look then thought better of it.

  “You stay here,” she said to Lyle. “We got room upstairs. Couple nights.”

  He was speechless.

  “He has no money,” I said.

  “Who has?” Ruthie motioned Lyle to come closer. “It be okay, trust me.” She pat me on the shoulder and escorted me to the door. “But that room be yours when you come back, sistah.”

  “He’s trouble,” I said aside, guilty for saying it. But I’d have felt worse if I hadn’t warned her.

  “Don’t you worry. You think careful. Loud up di ting.”

  My mouth went slack, I didn’t understand.

  “You clean up your business, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “And thank you. I knew you special, and not just cuz you special like me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It was closing in on midnight. Something fresh infused the evening, something I couldn’t quite taste, a tide that lifted me up, reminded me of bounding rhythmically around in The Beaver, with no history to burden me. Being useful. I saw it in Ruthie’s eyes. I was being useful and that made a difference. It made me lighter.

  Across the open Octagon lobby, shoulders back, I resolved not to change course, regardless of who appeared. As I got into the elevator a hand reached in to stop the doors from closing. Cufflinks.