“My gosh!” she’d cried. “What happened to your hair? You look like you have a case of the mange.” So he’d made up a story about how he had to take medication that made his hair fall out and then she’d been embarrassed, thinking he had some terrible disease. They’d finished the cocoa while she told him a long, involved story about her dog, who had the mange, only the vet hadn’t diagnosed it until the poor animal was practically bald. He was about to tell her a funny tale about his dog spraining his knee jumping off the newly upholstered couch when a bunch of people the girl knew showed up and they all went to ski the top of the mountain. They told him in supercilious tones that the top of the mountain was the only trail worth talking about at Butternut. They hadn’t asked him to come along, which was probably just as well. And he’d been left there, staring into the fire, mange and all.
Emma probably had a line of guys reaching around the block, he figured, waiting to take her out. There was a look about her, a look he’d never run into before, that he found disturbing. The look was trying to tell him something. The way her body moved, her eyes, her shoulders, all of her, spoke to him in a foreign language, one he didn’t speak or understand, but one he knew without question he would very much like to become fluent in.
Big hangover, eh, Dad? he thought as he watched his father pick at his half grapefruit, his gray face matching his gray suit. You never learn, do you? I coulda told you to steer clear of that calvados, Dad. That stuff’s bad news. If you’d asked me, which you didn’t, I coulda told you.
“Girls not up yet?” His father rattled his newspaper and settled in behind it as if it were the Declaration of Independence and he was John Hancock checking it for errors before he signed on the dotted line.
“You know how they are. They’ll probably surface in time for lunch,” his mother said. The telephone rang. His father’s hand jerked, sending coffee flying. He was surprised. His father almost never made an awkward motion, never spilled things. Boy, he must really be hurting.
He elbowed his mother out of the way, saying, “I’ll get it.” His father put down his paper and listened as he said, “Hello.”
“Trouble here,” Keith said. “Big trouble.”
His father stood, clutching his paper to his chest. “Who is it, John?” he asked.
“It’s Keith.” His father sat back down and again hid behind the paper.
“She’s in the hospital,” Keith said.
“How come?” He was becoming an expert at monosyllabic answers and questions.
“I was baby-sitting next door at the Irvings, and she called and said ‘Come and get me.’” Keith’s voice faded as if he were holding the receiver at arm’s length. “From next door she called and said ‘Come and get me,’ so I knew it was bad. I left the oldest kid in charge and skinned home. Told the kid I’d give him a quarter if he kept the others apart, kept ’em from killing each other. Man, you oughta see those kids go for each other. It’s like the battle of Little Bighorn. The kid said he wouldn’t do it for less than fifty cents. I couldn’t believe it. Anyway,” Keith took a long breath, “when I got here, she was zonked out on the couch. There was an empty pill bottle and an almost empty booze bottle on the floor. So I knew. I called the cops, they came and took her to the emergency room in a squad car. They got her in time.” Keith stopped and he heard the sound of heavy breathing, an obscene caller. “They pumped her out in time,” Keith said.
Whatever he said now counted.
“You did good, kid.” Noncommital, words Keith needed to hear, words that meant nothing to his mother and father, who were listening, he knew. “How about today?”
“I have to sleep. She’s still there. I don’t know for how long. I don’t know what the doc’s going to say. I’ll set the alarm for noon.” Keith sounded exhausted. “They got her in time. I don’t believe the whole thing. The intern told me five more minutes and it would’ve been curtains.”
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll tell Gleason,” he said and hung up.
“Keith’s mother’s in the hospital.” If she asked, he’d say the doctor didn’t know what was wrong. She didn’t ask. “He didn’t get much sleep last night. He wants me to tell Gleason he’ll be in after noon some time.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” his mother said. “Poor kid, he has a rough time of it, doesn’t he?”
Little did she know.
“Why don’t you ask him for dinner? I’m taking Mrs. Hobbs to the doctor this morning, but I’ll have plenty of time to go to market, maybe bake a cake or something festive. Les would probably like it if I made cheesecake. Whatever we have, it’ll be better than Keith going home to an empty place, eating alone.”
“Thanks, Ma.” It was the first time she’d ever suggested he invite Keith for dinner. Usually he had to ask. “Thanks, I will.” On his way out, he checked the windows of Emma’s room. He wouldn’t have been too surprised to find her leaning out, grinning at him, maybe even waving good-bye. The windows were blank, blinds down. He thought of throwing a couple of small boulders up against the glass to get her attention. Nah. With his luck, he’d break the window and his father’d have him up in small claims court for damages.
“So long!” he hollered to a nonexistent person across the street, hoping he’d wake her and she’d stagger to the window to see what all the ruckus was about. He waited, nothing happened. All right, so she was a heavy sleeper. He skimmed the fence like a decathlon runner and almost wiped out when he hit some ice. Never mind. She would be there, in his house, when he got home. The thought cheered him all day. Even after he’d seen Keith.
“She really did a job.” The shadows under Keith’s eyes were like bruises. He’d made it to school in time for lunch, which he ate ravenously, without criticism, not having eaten in some time.
“She must’ve taken the whole bottle. Washed ’em down with Scotch. She’s done it before. I told you, didn’t I?” Keith’s eyes were puffy and bloodshot. “I don’t know what to do, where to go from here. Sooner or later she’s going to pull it off. That’s what the doctor told me. If they really want to die, they’ll manage.”
“Why don’t you call your father?” He spoke before he thought. “Maybe he could help.” Keith’s face turned dark. He didn’t answer. He plunged on, as if this day were like any other. “My mother wants you to come for dinner. Les is home and she brought a friend. She’s really something.”
“Your sister isn’t all that great,” Keith said, not looking at him.
“I meant the friend, not Les.” He wouldn’t allow himself to get sore at Keith now. Keith was like a grizzly woken early from its nap. He had good reason. “She’s from Oklahoma. She has these fantastic boots made of red snakeskin. They’re custom-made.”
“So?” Keith said.
“What’s ‘erogenous zone’ mean?” he asked, knowing that would get Keith if nothing else would.
“Why do you want to know?” Keith smiled a strange smile.
“Because she said feet were an erogenous zone and I figured it meant something sexy.”
“Why?”
“The way she said it.”
“How’d she say it?”
“I don’t know. Everything she says is sexy.” He wanted to go on and on about Emma, but, for once, discretion prevailed. He decided against overkill. Keith would find out about Emma. All in good time.
“I have to go to the hospital after school. I said I would.”
“You want me to come with you?”
“That’s okay. I’ll go alone, thanks anyway. But thanks for offering. And tell your mother thanks, I’d like to come for dinner. I’ve gotta split now.”
“But what’s it mean? Do you know?” If it was sexy, Keith would know.
“Hey, man.” Keith smiled. “It’s every zone in your bod. It’s your teeth, your toenails, your knees. You’re loaded with them. You probably have more erogenous zones than most people. Hang on to ’em, kid. Hang on. I have a shitty date with Simons. See you.” Keith took off.
>
“Do you spell it with one R or two?” he shouted, but Keith by then was too far away to hear. On his way home he stopped at the library. The dictionaries were kept in a room off the main room where harried college students on vacation pored over reference books; haggard, earnest, procrastinators all. Procrastination is the thief of time. He’d had to write that one hundred times last year for one of his teachers. Boy, that was depressing. One hundred times when he could’ve been doing something constructive. The room was loaded now with hunched figures, writing feverishly. In a couple of years, that might be him. Would be him. He lifted one side of his mouth in a thin, Woody-type smile. Suppose he skipped college, took a year off to find himself. Suppose, when he found himself, he felt like puking. Entirely possible. He winced, thinking of the roars his father would let loose if he suggested finding himself.
Maybe he should run away. He could travel across country, notebook in hand, gaining experience from living. Sort of a Jack Kerouac type, only more lovable. Or he might opt for art school, learn the mechanics of drawing. That way, if he turned out to be a writer manqué, he’d have something to fall back on. Life was full of possibilities.
His hickey. He clapped a hand to his neck, causing heads to snap up. People were looking at him. No one had mentioned his hickey. He’d forgotten it himself. His encounter with young Grace had been for naught. He could’ve sworn that hickey was a winner. A standout. But here it was, afternoon half gone and the hickey was fading, drooping on the vine. Too much else was going on.
He found the dictionary, thumbed to the E’s. There was Eros, Greek god of love. Yeah. Right on. One R or two? He found it. Erogenous. Sexually sensitive or gratifying. All right.
He stared down at his feet with new respect. If feet had something to do with sex, then everything did. Sex was everywhere.
14
Woody put it another way. “My brain is my second favorite organ,” he’d said in some movie. Sleeper? He wasn’t sure.
Was the brain an erogenous zone?
It bore some thinking about.
“Keith says thanks, Ma, he’d like to come for dinner. He’ll come over after he gets back from the hospital, all right?”
“Fine. Get me the milk, would you, please, John?”
“What’re we having?”
“Shepherd’s pie and cheesecake.”
“What’s in shepherd’s pie?” He sniffed. It sure didn’t smell like steak.
“Leftover lamb. You love it,” she told him firmly, “it’s one of your favorites.”
“It is?” She had a way of telling him things were his favorites when he couldn’t remember them ever having been such. “Where are Les and … her friend?” He wouldn’t call her by name. It might make him seem too interested. Where’s what’s her name? I’ll never forget what’s her name.
“Shopping.”
“How long is she staying?”
“Why, I guess the usual time. Ten days. Isn’t that how long she stayed on her spring break last year?” She was talking about Leslie, he about Emma.
“How’s Mrs. Hobbs?” he remembered to ask. “She still forging ahead in business?” Mrs. Hobbs was one of the little old ladies his mother chauffeured around town as part of her volunteer work. Mrs. Hobbs was a gas. A few years back he’d been in the back seat, the old lady in front, talking nonstop about her dear departed husband.
“Why, I lived with that man for more than fifty years, don’t you know,” Mrs. Hobbs had said, turning to look at him, to make sure he was listening. “And I don’t believe I ever did anything right, to hear him tell it. I washed his shirts, shined his shoes, made him bran muffins for his digestion, and he never said so much as thank you’ once. He liked his shirts done soft, don’t you know, but I put starch in ’em and you could hear him all the way down to the corner.” Mrs. Hobbs had smiled then and taken off her small black hat to punch up her wispy white curls.
He’d seen a little pink spot on top of her head, which he’d realized with a start was Mrs. Hobbs coming through her hair. He’d opened the car window a crack and let his fingers hang out and had thought seriously of resting one cold finger on Mrs. Hobbs’s bald spot. Just to see what she’d do. But she’d put her hat back on, turning again to look at him with her little watery eyes, as if she read his mind. The moment for touching Mrs. Hobbs’s bare skin had, regrettably and finally, passed. He hadn’t seen her since.
“Oh, she got her dates mixed,” his mother said, sniffing at the milk to see if it had gone sour. “She called right after you left this morning and said her appointment was tomorrow, not today. She’s fine. Getting a little fuzzy, but aren’t we all.”
The telephone rang and she said, “Get that, will you, John. If it’s the young man for Emma, tell him she isn’t home yet. He’s a pest, must’ve called four times today.”
“Emma there yet?” a silky male voice inquired.
“Nein,” he said, tracing a little Hitler mustache on his upper lip with a handy ball-point. His mother called this dude young? He sounded pretty old. You could tell a person’s age over the telephone pretty well, if you’d made a study of voices. This one was at least thirty.
“You vant leave message?” He clicked his heels, not easy while wearing sneakers, and saluted with his free hand. You turkey, how do you get off calling her four times in one day?
“Just tell her Ralph called. Tell her I’ll wait to hear from her about tomorrow night, okay?”
Say please, you turd. Ralph? What kind of a name was that?
“She have your number?”
“She should have, but she’s a little flaky.” Ralph gave a somewhat snide laugh. “Some days she has trouble remembering her own name. I better give it to you.”
Listen, turkey boy, don’t hand me that crap. Don’t give me that familiarity crap, like you know her so well. I’m not standing still for that kind of garbage, turkey boy.
“Wait a second while I get a piece of paper.” He left the receiver dangling, went into the hall, took his father’s old hat out of the closet, turned down the brim all around, and practiced looking sinister in the mirror for a couple of minutes. Then he studied his gums to see if they were receding. Receding gums were all the rage these days. Were the gums an erogenous zone? He considered going up to floss his teeth.
“Okay.” Reluctantly, he returned to the phone. “I’m set. Shoot.”
“I thought you fell in,” Ralph said in a clenched voice.
“You want to give me the number? I’m in sort of a hurry.”
Ralph gave him the number. “Would you mind repeating that?” he said, not once, but twice. Pushing Ralph to the brink.
“You oughta get your ears cleaned out, sonny,” Ralph snarled.
“Emma know your last name?” he asked cheerfully, pleased with his interrogation technique. “In case this is a bar and grill she’s calling you at.”
“Whose monster kid brother are you, anyway?” Ralph was on the verge of an explosion.
“Heil Hitler,” he said, and hung up fast.
“What was that all about?” His mother backed out of the refrigerator, both hands loaded with fur-bearing leftovers. “Was that Emma’s young man?”
“Making soup, eh, Ma?” he asked, not answering her question. The less said about Ralph the better.
“Things get so crowded. I should’ve cleaned it out before Les got home, but I forgot.” She had the grace to look sheepish. “You know how I feel about throwing perfectly good food away, John. With people starving all over the world. What do you think of Emma?” She was changing the subject. You could practically hear her shifting. She was sensitive on the subject of her leftovers. “She’s … different, isn’t she?”
“Well, she’s not Grace Lerner’s niece, Ma, if that’s what you mean. She’s okay.” He was slippery as an eel when it came to committing himself about people. Girls, especially. He didn’t want to be quoted. “I’ve never known anyone from Oklahoma before.” As if Oklahoma were Afghanistan. Mercifully, a car pulled
up in the driveway just then and he heard them talking and laughing. He went out to greet them, glad to get away from what he thought of as the inquisition.
“Johnny!” Leslie embraced him as if she hadn’t seen him in months, He stood there thinking Emma might get the idea and do the same, but no luck. He helped them carry in their packages.
“This is for you.” Emma handed his mother a package wrapped in shiny dark-brown paper, tied with a huge, classy white bow. He was pleased that his mother didn’t say, “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” the way phonies did when you gave them a present. He couldn’t stand it when people did stuff like that. Instead, his mother said, “Thank you so much, Emma,” and picked carefully at the bow, no doubt having some future plans for it. She also collected string.
Inside was a mohair throw the color of ripe apricots. Even he could tell it was expensive.
“Why,” his mother’s face flushed, “it’s perfect. It’s lovely. Thank you, Emma.” He wished he could have bought his mother a present as grand. She held it up against her cheek.
“I’ve never had such a beautiful thing; well, anyway, not in years,” his mother said. “I can’t thank you enough.”
Emma ducked her head in mock shyness. “I’m glad you like it. All right if I use the shower? I promise I’ll make it fast. My hair’s filthy.”
She excused herself. He felt the tips of his ears get hot at the mention of “shower.” Did she know?
Les put the kettle on for tea. His mother placed the pink cyclamen in the center of the kitchen table. He got out the jar of cinnamon and sugar to sprinkle on the toast. While they waited for the kettle to sing, Les tried on her new running shoes; pale blue and guaranteed to make her run faster than anybody. “They were on sale,” she said. “I would’ve bought two pair but I ran out of money. Emma wanted to buy me another pair, but I wouldn’t let her. She’s very generous. She has scads of bills crumpled up in every pocket. It’s the most amazing thing.” Leslie shook her head. “I’ve never known anyone as rich as Emma. She’s always lending people money. Half the time I don’t even think they pay her back.”
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