After recharging in the sun, Ray used the outdoor shower and dried off. He hung his bathing trunks behind the latticework fence, and put on the shorts he hung out to dry the previous day. The line was full of their clothes. There were two racy thongs, one lime and white and one black, undoubtedly Taina’s. There was a pair of so-called “boyfriend” underwear and a sports bra. Holly’s, he guessed. And then there was a plain white stretch cotton camisole and matching bikinis that had a crisp, orderly appearance that echoed Julia’s persona. He liked the plain white cotton best, and took it in his hand and caressed the fabric with his thumb.
“Is it dry yet?”
Ray jumped. He turned. Julia.
“It’s still damp,” he stammered, putting his hands in his pockets. He blushed violently.
“Well, sleeping beauty won’t need these until after one or so. They should be dry by then.”
“The sensible cotton belongs to Taina?”
Julia leaned in and whispered, “She brought a suitcase full of them—all white—not beige or pink or black or anything. Just white.”
“She’s militant.”
“I’m not so sure it’s militant,” Julia said, squinting with one eye to find the right word. “Hmm. I’d say it suggests a secret longing for innocence and order.” She turned her head slightly, as if she were going to share something, then thought better of it. She put her hand underneath the dancing camisole, bunching it in her hands and held it out. “Smell it,” she said. “When was the last time you smelled clean cotton that air-dried in the sun?”
Ray stuck his face into the cloth and inhaled. “It makes me think of being a baby.”
“That’s what everyone says,” Julia said. “It reminds them of a way of life that we’ve lost since the advent of modern conveniences.”
“I’m not sure I ever lived without conveniences, but it reminds me of that anyway,” Ray said. “I think they chemically insert the memory at the Tide factory.”
“Maybe,” Julia said, then pointed to the other clothes on the line, behind Ray. “I need to get to my undies there if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, sure,” Ray stepped aside.
She grabbed the thongs hanging by a single clip.
“Those are yours?”
Julia laughed, and Ray noticed that one of her front teeth was just a tiny bit crooked. The underwear easily disappeared into her fist, which she held up.
“I’m sensible on the outside, but I’m wild at heart,” she said with a wink, and disappeared down the path of tall seagrass that led back up to the house.
Oh, no, he thought. If Julia was conservative on the outside but wild at heart, her perfect opposite was someone bold on the outside but tender on the inside, and that person wasn’t exactly David. He had noticed, on the previous night at dinner, the way that Adrian followed her constantly with his eyes or completely avoided her. If Adrian was gunning for Julia, the vacation would undoubtedly end in disaster. David had shown them the diamond ring he had brought with him, “just in case.” But it was obvious to everyone that the ring would never be on Julia’s finger. Ray suspected that David’s chance to seal the deal had come and gone. He remembered when the pair had started dating. Upon meeting her for the first time, Adrian had described her to Ray as “elegant and serene” and that he thought she was a mismatch to their stubborn, nonconformist, feral brother. Although Julia wasn’t Ray’s type (all his lust was reserved for unattainable centerfold-types), he understood what other men might see in her, and certainly how other women might admire or envy her. And this made him extremely proud that she liked him. For the first time in his life, he felt like one of the popular kids, and he wanted it to stay that way. So after breakfast, he got to work mopping the wood floors. Julia gave him the thumbs-up and said, “You’re definitely invited back.” He grabbed paper towels, sponges, and several bottles of cleaning agents and headed to the dining room. He tried to open the windows, but the wood frames were so swollen that they stuck. When he managed to lift them all, the breeze cascaded into the house, and dust and papers took to the air. Curtains fluttered. A half-hour later he went back for more paper towels, sweating with exertion of cleaning. Adrian was just standing around talking to Holly and Julia, who were both cleaning too. Adrian wore long bathing trunks and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. “Perfect timing, man,” Ray said, putting his hands on his hips. “We could use some help.”
“I’m going kayaking,” Adrian replied. He stood in front of Julia, giving Ray his back, and leaned in and said something Ray didn’t hear. Next thing she was handing him the sunglasses that she had propped up on top her head, and Adrian put them on.
“Oh, I love aviator glasses,” Holly said.
Ray balked. “Aren’t those antiques?”
“World War II,” Julia said. “But I trust Adrian. He won’t lose them.”
“They make you look like a prick,” Ray said.
“Then I’ll guard them with my life,” Adrian replied, and headed out the door.
When Adrian had left, Ray said, “Why does he always get away with it?”
Holly said, “He doesn’t get away with anything, Ray. I know you won’t believe this, but Adrian works his ass off. He’s extremely disciplined in everything he does, from his music to exercising.” She shrugged. “But I know what you mean. He answers to no one.”
Julia turned and began to rub the wood cabinets with a cloth. “I think he does answer to someone,” she said. “He answers to all of you,” she said. “As a group. He’s a family man down to his core. And you know what else? He’s paranoid about being ‘too nice.’ He tries so hard not to be just like his dad.”
Chapter 27
David
It’s taken me three full days to bring it up. We’re on the porch, close to lunchtime. When I turn to Adrian and Ray, I try to sound casual. “So. Ray thinks we’re Cuban,” I pitch. “I’m starting to think that maybe he’s right.” A total lie. But I’m banking on the fact that none of them can resist the temptation to shoot down each other’s ideas, and sure enough, it gets the ball rolling.
Julia is sitting across from me, eating ripe, juicy cherries from a bowl. I know she’s about to stain her white sundress any minute, and the tension of waiting for that to happen has me on edge. Or maybe it’s because I can’t imagine anyone not noticing how sexy she looks sitting there, with a strap of her dress fallen off one shoulder, lowering cherries into her mouth by the stem. “Cuba?” she echoes on cue.
Holly is using the porch rail to do some hamstring stretches. She waves a hand around. “Impossible. The island of Hispaniola is a huge barrier between Cuba and Puerto Rico. There’s no way.”
Ray pulls his shoulders back, speaks slowly, trying hard to restrain himself from rushing at her with too much conviction. “Families who want to give their kids a chance to live in freedom might keep their mouths shut if they themselves are not free. Who’s not free? Cubans.”
“Sure, your theory has political logic but it ignores the laws of physics. Ray, we know for a fact that Cuba isn’t an option,” Taina says, joining us at the table and pulling the shell off a shrimp. “Newsweek tested that theory and rejected it, along with other departure points, because of the weather and the currents.” She pointed at David. “I showed you the paperwork my mom collected, right? I have a map of the currents, which were moving in a northeast-to-southwest direction. For Cubans to have found the empty boat, it would have had to drift in a direction opposite the current. Impossible.”
Ray points at her with an empty bamboo skewer. “We also know that objects move in every direction around the swirl of a hurricane.”
“Give it up, Ray,” Adrian chimes in.
Ray shakes his head. “No way. I’m as Cuban as . . .” he looks around for a prop. His face lights up and he reaches into Adrian’s breast pocket and pulls out a cigar. He holds it up, his eyes sparkling with amusement at his luck.
Adrian snatches the cigar from him and points at the band circling it. “It�
�s a Dominican, pendejo.” He throws his head back and laughs.
“Well I’m Cuban,” Raymond insists. “Seriously though, given the fact that we don’t know jack, why wouldn’t you just pick being Cuban? It’s so much more . . .” he searches for the right words, mashing his fingers together.
“Tidy?” Adrian offers. “You can take it out and look at it and think how heroic our families were, and then you can fold it up and put it back in its little box, labeled ‘My Elián Gonzalez Story’ and then you put it up on a shelf. Your ‘Pandora’s Box’ has the shape of a cigar box.” He sticks out his lower lip and points at Ray. “Very convenient.”
Ray bites the sharp tip of the skewer and spits it out. “It’s not half as dumbass as your theory.” He leans in. “Tell them what you told me in Phoenix.”
Adrian shakes his head. “Give me that,” he says, pulling the skewer from between Ray’s fingers. “You’re making me nervous.”
“What is it?” Taina says. “C’mon, fess up, Adrian.”
Ray smirks and half-closes his eyes, pointing with one pudgy finger at Adrian. “This one over here believes that he sprang from the sea, parentless. And you tell me that my Cuban exile story is delusional?”
Holly makes a face. “Parentless?”
Adrian folds his arms in front of him. “It’s artsy but it works for me.”
Taina said, “You teased me about my geometric starfish. But I, on the other hand, will respect your ‘interpretation.’ ”
Adrian nods. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“If stupid and artsy are the same thing, then it’s certainly artsy,” Ray says rolling his eyes up. “A lame story not even a kindergartner could believe.”
“I have my own delusions,” Holly says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “When I was a kid I told everyone that my parents were drunk and irresponsible millionaires who dropped me off the edge of the family yacht by mistake.”
“Hmm. That’s lame too,” says Ray, with a dismissive wave that mimics the one she gave him earlier.
I segue to the next item on my agenda: “The only thing left to do is publish our story in a major Spanish-language magazine, especially one available in the Caribbean. Someone will step forward if we approach it without being ornamental.”
“Ornamental?” Holy echoes, her head cocked to the side.
“Aphasia,” I say, then prompt them to help me. “It’s a word that means that you think you’re better than others.”
“Judgmental!” shouts Ray, jumping out of his seat. When he sits back down, the table shakes and the ice cubes clink and sway in their glasses.
I point at him. “That’s it. Thanks.”
Ray looks pleased with himself, then repeats the sentence. “Someone will step forward if we approach it without being judgmental.”
I look at Adrian and ask one more time. “Call a reporter. Any reporter. We’ll get more press from the ones you’ve slept with.”
Adrian doesn’t say anything. Instead, he stands up, grabs the corners of his polo shirt, and pulls it up. He’s pulling out the big guns again, I think to myself. None of them know about the scars but Doug and me. So I watch as Adrian stands before us, bare chested. Holly frowns, “Whatcha doin’, Aidge?”
He points to the scars on his flank. They are, without a doubt, disturbing, so I look away. Julia openly admires his six-pack. Then her eyes go lower, just a little, as she follows the narrow line of hair that descends from his navel into his low-rise jeans.
“What the . . .” whispers Taina. She reaches over and touches one of the scars, running her finger over the small bump. Adrian pulls away, as if her finger has burned him. Taina’s eyes harden and she sits back.
“Dude,” Ray begins, “they look like . . .” But he can’t finish the sentence.
“Cigarette burns? Yup,” Adrian pulls his shirt back down. Holly lets out a little shudder. Adrian looks around. “So as long as we’re playing show and tell, does anyone else have anything they’d like to share?”
No one speaks.
“I didn’t think so,” he says, and tosses a napkin across the table.
Julia always acts all chipper when she’s uncomfortable, so I’m not surprised that she leaps up, goes over to the buffet table and busies herself handing out individual plates of freshly shucked clams, raw and presented on the half-shell. “Local,” she says over-enthusiastically, like she’s selling them.
“But the women I remember were so loving,” I insist, happily partaking of the clams. I pop a trembling clam into my mouth. “They wouldn’t hurt anyone, Adrian. Trust me. And none of the rest of us have scars, so obviously we were kept safe.”
“David,” Adrian says tersely. “I’m not going to rely on your hallucinations to guide my decision. You believe what you want to believe.”
I grab the clams and oysters off of Adrian’s plate and begin to chuck them, one by one, at Adrian. His arms fly up in defense, and he pushes his chair backward, increasing the distance between us. Almost immediately, seagulls appear out of nowhere to eat. Their cawing is loud and frantic.
“What the hell?”
Julia grabs my wrist. “David. Stop it!”
“Are you nuts?” says Adrian. He stands up, then leans over the table and tries to pry the plate, which still has a few oysters, out of my hand. I pull away even harder. We struggle for a moment until the plate flies out of my hand and clatters to the floor. The oyster meat sticks to the wood siding of the house for a moment. It rolls down, wet and obscene-looking, followed by a slow-moving trail of cocktail sauce, like clotted blood. Almost immediately, Julia reaches into a canvas beach sack and presents me with a stress ball. I want to throw it too, but I squeeze it first. I squeeze it again, and something inside me slithers away and disappears.
I remember Julia’s father suddenly, John Crew Griswold, with his Columbo mustache. I remember him in a white panama hat with a black band. He gives me an encouraging nod from a rocking chair on the opposite end of the porch. So I muster all the courage I have and say, in a calm and controlled voice, “I’m sorry, Adrian. I lost my cool.”
Adrian is wiping his shirt off with a napkin, and stops to give me a sideways look. “Alright. Sorry I said ‘hallucinations.’ ”
I nod to him and we allow a moment of silence. Then I raise a finger like Jesus. “There are four DNA kits in the refrigerator.” I look each one of my siblings in the eye. “Comparative siblingship tests for all of you,” I point to each one of them, “against me.”
“I’m not doin’ it,” Adrian says, “I told you.” He’s still patting himself with napkins.
Holly, who has always been the most resistant (or perhaps competitive) to Adrian’s leadership in the family, says, “Oh please. What’s the big deal?”
Taina clears her throat to speak. She dabs at the corners of her mouth with her napkin and takes a deep breath before saying, “Doug lifted some DNA from your coffee cups.” She looks at Adrian. “Yours, David’s, and mine. And if you’re wondering what happened to your toothbrushes that time you came to visit, he took those too.” She closes her eyes and rests the tips of her fingers on her forehead, hiding her eyes. “And now I know.”
“Don’t say it. I forbid you,” Adrian says.
“You forbid me?” Taina says with a dry laugh. “Are you kidding me?”
“Yes, as the leader of this family, I forbid you.”
“Who made you boss?” says Ray. “I don’t remember voting.”
Taina glares at Adrian “You’re not my brother. Ninety-nine point eight percent says you’re not. So screw you.”
Adrian pivots, grabs his guitar with one hand, puts the other palm down on the railing of the veranda, and catapults his body sideways over the rail. There’s a thud as his feet hit the ground and then the sound of the gravel crunching underneath him. In a moment we hear a door slam at the boathouse and we see him motoring across the water to Stony Creek. Ray laces his hands behind his head, turns to Holly, and says, “I’d kill for
a little bourbon right now.” I suspect that he wants to remind us that he, not Adrian, is the one that has always been at the center of our controversy, and that he wants the attention back. He puts his hands out and says, “Just kidding.”
No one laughs. No one even blinks.
“Lighten up.” He lifts his glass of cranberry and soda. “I’m over it.” He turns and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I can handle not being related to you. Really. I’ll take the test. It’s cool.”
“I . . . app—” but I can’t finish the word. I look to Julia for help. “When you’re happy?”
“Appreciate?”
“Yes. I appreciate your support.” I want to say more, but sometimes it’s too much work.
Ray holds up his tattoo and says, “We’re brothers and sisters no matter what. Isn’t that the whole point?” He looks at Taina and Holly. “No matter what?”
I nod. We bump our starfish tattoos.
After we’ve eaten, we wrap up Adrian’s lunch and put it in the icebox. I bring down the DNA kits. I explain how simple it is: Open mouth. Use buccal swab to scrape inside of cheek. Drop swab in bag. Seal. Send to lab. I detail the cost too, because it’s not cheap and I’m only footing the bill for comparisons to me—several hundred dollars for each, since we’re testing maternal and paternal genes. Matters are further complicated by the fact that there’s no parental DNA to compare it to. “They’ll make us pay dearly for that,” I tell them. “But I figure that we could save some money by using ‘if-then’ logic to draw certain assumptions, then we can avoid testing every possible relationship.” I explain that they can choose comparative tests to each other if they wish.
Stay with Me Page 18