If Jack's in Love

by Stephen Wetta

  “Don’t you dare kiss me. Don’t you even try it.”

  “If you’re going to take my ring you have to kiss me.”

  In some corner of my mind I saw Gladstein perched on his three-legged stool, watching and applauding.

  “Why were you staring at me just now? That was so weird.”

  “Because you’re beautiful,” I said.

  I moved in and got my kiss.

  Gladstein nearly fell off his stool.

  When I drew back, her eyes remained pensively shut, evaluating, as opposed to savoring, my kiss.

  She blinked her eyes open…. And then she began to dictate the terms.

  One, she would accept the ring, but only for a few days. Two, she would come to the party, but I was not allowed to pick her up at her house. Three, I was never to tell anyone, ever, that she had gone to the party with me.

  I nodded, overwhelmed by her skill in romantic administration. And those were just the major terms. Now she got down to the nitty-gritty.

  We had to figure out some way to sneak her into the pool. One good thing, Clark Lane was fairly secluded, but she nixed the idea of going through the woods: too many ticks. Probably I should just leave getting to the party to her. Another thing, she’d have to wear a bathing suit under her clothes so her parents wouldn’t see.

  I stood there slackly attentive while she arranged the details. She asked if my brother would be at the party and I explained he was the reason we were invited in the first place.

  “That girl likes him?”

  She wrestled with the enormity of that, and then she told me that Stan must not be allowed to speak to her. “Just tell him. If he speaks I won’t acknowledge him. And God help him if he says anything nasty about Gaylord.”

  Passionately I shook my head. That would never happen, I swore.

  She then informed me that she would keep my ring until the party, at which point I’d have to take it back. It did not mean, repeat, did not, that we were going steady.

  “What does it mean, then?”

  “It means I’m your friend until the party. We’ll take it from there.”

  This girl had my head swimming. I wasn’t even able to relish the kiss.

  She held up the oversized ring and smiled. “I’ll bet in a couple of years I could grow into this.”

  “It’s yours,” I avowed, “forever!”

  She gave me an exasperated look. “What did we just agree on?”

  “Okay, fine. I’m letting you know, that’s all.”

  Through the trees, from down at the Pudding house, sounds of conversation drifted up. Myra grew alarmed.

  “What time should I be there Saturday?”

  I told her one in the afternoon.

  And she vanished.

  She pogo-sticked right on out of the woods.

  Dickie Pudding and his brother entered as she exited, punching their fists into their baseball gloves.

  12

  I HURRIED TO GLADSTEIN’S to tell him the news. As I dashed past the Ben Franklin, hoping and praying Mom wouldn’t spot me, out through the door strolled Pop, bestowing the favor of his crooked grin upon the world. He must have stopped in to hit up Mom for money.

  “Whoa hoss, where you off to in such a hurry?” he said, collaring me.

  “Up there.” I pointed up the hill.

  I didn’t want him to know about my friendship with Gladstein. Or about the ring. Or about Myra. In Pop’s presence my most ardent schemes seemed preposterous and I no longer wanted to admit to them. Maybe it was because I was small and he was big and I was years away from attaining that easy masculinity he had brought down from the mountains with him. Frankly, I didn’t think I’d ever have it. I was full of the nervousness that creates neurotic ambition, whereas Pop was impervious to ambition. Even Stan’s masculinity was hard rather than easy. Stan hated being who he was, and his virility was manifest in his inclination to tear off noses and swallow ears and spit out eyeballs. Seducing girls was his social vengeance. Stan never forgot he was a Witcher, and shame had made him proud. But Pop, he took life as it came. He was a democrat, a man among men, and without bigotry. There was a socialist streak in Pop; he didn’t think of the things he owned as possessions. If you wanted what he had, you could have it. But he expected the same of you. Probably that was his problem in life: the world is not a socialist place, fundamentally. Fundamentally the world is competitive and ruthless and striving, and he found the ambitions of others heartless and cold. His easy attitude made everything you dreamed about seem vain, grasping.

  “What do you mean, ‘up there’? You keeping secrets from your old pop?” His eyes were teasing me, having fun.

  “I’m heading up the hill, that’s all.”

  “To Gladstein’s?”

  It surprised me that he knew. I glanced through the plate window of the Ben Franklin and saw Mom at her cash register, waving enthusiastically and blowing kisses. She almost looked pretty.

  Pop said, “She tells me you and him are becoming best friends.”

  “He’s all right.”

  “You going to see him? I’ll come along with you.”

  “No!”

  Pop’s company was the last thing I wanted. For the first time ever, I was putting another grown man before my father. I guess in some remote way I felt guilty about it. But it was a fact: I would happily divulge to Gladstein what I would never confide to Pop. I didn’t even want to be in the same room with them both.

  “I’m just stopping in for a minute,” I explained. “I have something to tell him.”

  “Why?”

  It was a good question. Why would I be calling on a merchant Jew who dealt in costly diamonds and kept fluffy dogs and retailed unintelligible Yankee jokes?

  “I have something to tell him real quick. You wait here,” I said.

  “I wanna see the man’s shop, I’ve never been inside the place.”

  He steered me onward, and my heart fell accordingly. The only reason I wanted to see Gladstein was to tell him what had just happened with Myra. And if Pop was around I’d be loath even to bring up her name. Then again, I was worried Gladstein might bring it up. Discretion was hardly a trait the megaphone-throated jeweler could claim.

  Pop walked up the steps beside me and we turned in.

  “Little Witcher!” Mr. Gladstein called.

  The prissy bell tinkled over our heads. Pop turned to look.

  “And who do we have here, the famous Mr. Witcher?” Gladstein said.

  Pop ducked his head, being humble. He came forth with an outstretched hand.

  “Yes sir, very pleased to meet you.”

  “The annihilator of El Dorado Hills,” Gladstein boomed.

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Pop said. “Sure is a nice place you have here.”

  He’d barely glanced at it.

  “I understand you’re the annihilator of Kellners,” Gladstein boomed, unwilling to give anything up.

  Pop gave me a shove and laughed. “What have you been telling this man?”

  I stared hard at Gladstein. I begged him with my eyes to shut up.

  Pop gazed all about, rubbing his hands. “My, you got some gorgeous jewelry here, you sure do.” He stared through the glass-top counter at the riches and splendor of the House of Gladstein. “Look at that gold necklace there.” Pop whistled. Then he wandered over to gaze at the stuff in the window.

  As soon as he turned his back, I glared furiously at Gladstein. I put my finger against my lips. I cut my arms through the air like an umpire calling out a base runner. I popped my eyes at him. Gladstein was startled. But then his Buddha smile returned. I think he got the message.

  Meanwhile Pop was before the show window, entranced by all the glitter and gold. He kept muttering, “Golly gee, mmmm-mm, ain’t that pretty.” He sounded like Andy Griffith. It made me ashamed in front of this Solomon of the towns of Jersey.

  I turned my attention to Gladstein. He raised a questioning brow, inquiring mutely about Myra.
The ring, the kiss. Had I?

  I gave him the thumbs-up sign and he nodded, reassured.

  Pop returned to us. “Mr. Gladstein, is it all right if I ask you something? I don’t know a lot about jewelry and I’m curious. How much would the most expensive item in this store sell for?”

  “That’s not easy to say. Some of these items I sell on consignment. Then again, I might give wholesale prices to customers who buy several things at once.”

  “Yes sir. I see. So you negotiate on your prices.”

  “You might say that.”

  Gladstein didn’t like these questions. He gave my pop the once-over.

  “Are you interested in something in particular?”

  “Well, my wife’s got a birthday coming up,” Pop said.

  “How are you gonna—?” I stopped, not wanting to embarrass him.

  He pointed through the glass counter. “That gold bracelet, how much would you ask for that?”

  Gladstein peered down, reluctantly. “For that I might ask a hundred and fifty, but it’s a very nice piece of work. The other bracelet, the silver one, that’s a good piece. I wouldn’t ask more than forty for that. Maybe thirty-five.” I think he was trying to steer Pop to a manageable price range. He was shrewd enough to know what a man could pay. Besides, anyone could see from the way Pop was dressed what he could (and could not) afford. He was wearing a light-blue work shirt unbuttoned halfway, with its tail out on one side. His trousers were rolled at the bottom and they rested on his scuffed-up work shoes.

  He kept playing the unassuming workingman. “Well, I still got a couple months before the old lady tacks on another year. You know Miss Witcher, works at the Ben Franklin?”

  “I fixed her Timex last month. Demagnetized it.”

  “I hear you been keeping an eye on my boy.” Pop put his arm around me, the proud father. It was phony as hell. Not that he was a bad pop, it just wasn’t his way.

  Gladstein demonstrated one of his demon grins and Pop blanched. It was the first time he’d seen it. “Boy keeps me entertained. Gives me the lowdown on the neighbors. Kid’s better than Rex Reed.”

  Pop gave me a squeeze. “I better not get wind of you telling him anything else about me. Man won’t have anything to do with me when you’re through.”

  They both chuckled manfully.

  To me it just seemed weird. I cracked my knuckles and looked away.

  Pop became serious again. “You have everything in the store on display? Everything’s in the showroom?”

  Gladstein’s eyebrows came together. “What you see is what you get.”

  I fidgeted uneasily. Gladstein had just lied. I knew damn well he kept jewelry in the safe. I knew it from him. I knew it from Snead. What’s more, Pop knew it, so I didn’t understand why he asked in the first place.

  Pop put out his hand and said, “Well, listen, I gotta run. Just wanted to meet you, been hearing so much about you.”

  “It’s been a pleasure,” Gladstein boomed.

  I wanted to stay behind to tell Gladstein about Myra, but Pop lugged me through the door with him. I stared helplessly back, and the jeweler jerked his thumb in the air.

  Outside, Pop said, “Come on, I’m running by Snead’s before we go home.”

  He took me across the lot, which inclined so steeply that people would put on their emergency brakes when they parked. We jumped in the dented-up Ford, and Pop gathered the trash from the footwell and tossed it in the back. Then he got her started.

  “Why are we going to Snead’s?” I asked.

  “Got something to give him.”

  “What?”

  Pop shrugged. “Just something.”

  I turned away, depressed. It was the second time I’d heard a grown-up lie today.

  I had mixed feelings about going to see Snead, anyway. I was worried Mr. Pudding would find out and use it when he presented his case against us at the klavern. And yet I was eager to see how Snead lived. I’d never been inside a Negro’s house.

  We went down Karen Drive and forked off on the two-lane blacktop that led to the seafood shack.

  Snead’s driveway was dusty and long. It ran past the seafood shack and down into some trees. Through the trees you could see his house and his truck.

  Pop honked the horn and Snead came out with his son Robert, the one my age.

  Snead said, “Take little Witcher inside, show him your room.”

  Robert took me upstairs. I noticed two beds and figured he must share the room with a brother not present. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the house, although I could hear voices outside.

  Robert stared at me and I stared back. The house wasn’t much different from a white person’s.

  He showed me a model plane he had put together. Next he showed me a basketball. Then he showed me a catcher’s mitt. I kept complimenting him.

  We stood there and didn’t say much.

  Through the window I saw Snead and Pop below, talking seriously.

  “Wanna go out back and throw the ball?” Robert asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  But then Pop hollered it was time to go.

  Robert turned bashfully away and I told him I’d see him later.

  When Pop and I were in the car he said, “Now why would Gladstein tell me he has everything out in the showroom? He’s got something in that safe he ain’t talking about.”

  I said, “It ain’t your business, Pop.”

  He shot me a funny look. He wasn’t used to hearing me take that tone. Later I felt conflicted about it, and I prepared justifications in case he challenged me. But he must have dropped it. He probably didn’t want to talk about it any more than I did.

  13

  NOW THAT I HAD KISSED MYRA, my sole purpose was to do it again. For the rest of the week I was harassed by longing. I lived solely for the pool party at Anya’s. I was intolerant towards time. Clocks made me angry, calendars provoked my wrath. On Friday afternoon when the clock struck one I said, “Twenty-four hours to go.” It seemed an eternity. I had no idea how the situation would play itself out; whether, for instance, I might find an opportunity to get my skinny girlfriend alone beside the brackish creek in the woods, or whether I might cop a little hug beyond the trees. But Myra was so squeamish and afraid of critters, and it might strike the others as rude if I stole her away from the party. I just didn’t know; I hadn’t been to that many parties.

  The pool at the house was kidney-shaped. Even though I’d seen it when the house was being built, it was still smaller than I expected. Anya’s family name was Taylor. Nevertheless, as her parents insisted, “Please, call us Tillie and Basil.” Some Taylor kinfolk local to town were present, the only people the Dallas Taylors knew so far, unless you counted Stan and me. Their number included a humble man, a decent woman, a dour son and a pious daughter. As practicing Methodists they considered these newcomer relatives shamefully immoral because of their conspicuous consumption and manifest taste for go-go accessories. (The pendulous jewels dangling from Mrs. Taylor’s ears matched her snow-white bathing suit. To top it off, she had painted white lipstick on her lips, which in the self-effacing world of El Dorado Hills belonged solely to graven fashion models like Twiggy.) I suppose this is why they kept to themselves at a table near the western lobe of the kidney. Mrs. Taylor, or Tillie, kept calling me Jackie, although I was pretty firm about it being Jack. Basil, a martini drinker, picked up on it, and he took to bellowing “Jackie Robinson!” “Jackie Wilson!” “Jackie Mason!” whenever his eyes lighted on me. Apparently he’d challenged himself to come up with a different “Jackie” every time he bellowed.

  I was tossing sticks in the pool to amuse the Taylors’ golden retriever, a dog that seemed to enjoy no restriction from the family water (at least no one stopped me). Myra still hadn’t arrived, and just when I was approaching the verge of despair—it was one-thirty—Tillie called from the entranceway of the fenced-in pool: “Oh, Jackie, your friend is here!”

  I leapt up and escorted M
yra to the chaise lounge where I’d been reclining. She nodded in all directions, smiling a graciously frozen smile for everyone except Stan, who was smirking beside Anya in the pool. Only that morning had I admitted to him my date would be a Joyner.

  Myra perched on the edge of the chaise, tentatively lowering her skinny butt so that it barely touched the metal frame. I interpreted that as a lack of commitment.

  “Are you wearing your bathing suit?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. She had a pink blouse and blue jeans over the suit.

  “You wanna swim?”

  “Not yet,” she replied, curtly.

  Her frozen smile of graciousness reappeared as Tillie brought her a Coke with a slice of lime.

  “I suppose you’re too young for a highball,” Tillie said.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  It occurred to me that Stan and Anya were drinking booze. I’d been wondering why their beverages were clear, whereas mine was Coke-colored.

  Tillie sat nearby. Myra swung herself in that direction, deliberately excluding me so that she could chat compulsively with Tillie about Gaylord and his scholarship to Duke. Whenever I tried to get a word in edgewise she ignored me and kept her back rigidly turned away.

  I fell quiet and sat abandoned, depressed. In the pool Stan and Anya observed my plight and took to whispering.

  My eyes met Basil’s. He was on the other side of the white metal table, smiling mellowly into his martini.

  “Jackie Gleason!” he bellowed.

  Finally Anya clambered out of the pool and padded over on wet feet. She perched on the chaise lounge, her back nearly resting against Myra’s, and purred huskily in my direction, “Hey there, sexy.”

  Myra swung her head.

  “Dear, have you met little Myra?” Tillie asked.

  Anya didn’t take her eyes away from me.

  “Hi,” she said distractedly. She kept smiling at me. “I just came over to say hello to this sexy hunk here.”

  Myra twisted around a little more.

  Anya flicked water at me, giggling.

  I stared back in amazement.

  Myra’s gracious smile began to falter.

  “If only you were a couple years older, no telling what I’d do,” Anya said.

  Never in my born years had a woman’s eyes shone at me so shamelessly. She licked her lips and walked her fingers brazenly up my thigh. “I’m just thinking. How old are you, twelve? That means when you’re eighteen I’ll be twenty-four. That’s not such a bad age difference. When you turn eighteen give me a call, okay, big boy?” She cut her eyes at Stan. “At least he’ll be legal then.”