“Yeah, old man. It’s creepy,” she said, seductively closing her mouth around a forkful of pancakes.
As Lou stood up to leave the kitchen, Beth rose too, and smashed into him. It looked like an accident. “Ow. Lou. My boobs!”
Beth covered her breasts and glared at him as he stomped toward the foyer. While he scrambled to put on his shoes, she dramatically collapsed back into the vinyl chair and laughed like a diva.
“Jeez, Peach. That was funny.”
Lou headed outside, slamming the door behind him. Beth ran to the kitchen window, still giggling, as I wordlessly joined her, unsure of whether I could handle the image of Lou crying into his hands in the carport. But instead he seemed to be looking for something to smash to bits against a wall. His hand found the novel Beth had been reading, the one I had asked about, sitting dog-eared on the corner of his workbench. It was Flowers in the Attic, Nana Beecher’s old book. He glanced at the back cover where it described a “tale of passion” between “innocent and beautiful siblings” who were “locked away from the world by their selfish mother.” The opening chapter was titled “Goodbye, Daddy.”
He must have skimmed through the book for ten minutes, seeming to stop on the first of several sex scenes between the young brother and sister.
“Beth reads this shit and passes it on to Peachy?” Beth said, mimicking Lou with a deep-voiced, Southern accent. “No wonder she’s overly sexed-up and makin’ funny ’bout incest!”
Lou wiped his eyes and carefully shut the book. In a house full of estrogen, he was the only one easily brought to tears by teasing. That was Beth’s cue. She left my side, slapped open the door, and stood like a superhero, fists on waist, in the carport.
“There it is,” she said, startling him. “You shouldn’t read that book, Lou. It’s not your kind of book. Or is it?”
“I’m sorry. I just found it over there. Here you go.”
She snatched the book out of his hands.
“Don’t tell Peachy you found it, okay? I’m not done with it yet.”
“Sure, Beth. But it’s not real smart reading, is it?”
She fanned out the pages of the paperback with her thumb, the slight breeze blowing back her bangs.
“Lou? Know what I wish for sometimes?” she asked, rocking on her hips. He seemed a little heartened. This was the kind of conversation he had always craved, had so wanted to have with her. He once told me he missed those times when we’d absently finger our wet hair while he dried our legs after a bath, the both of us nattering at him about girly things like ponies, the Fonz, unicorns.
“No, what? Tell me, Beth.” Lou pulled up a stool.
“Well … I wish—I wish I had a gorgeous older brother,” she squealed, holding the sickening book aloft and running back into the kitchen. “I’m kidding, Lou. It’s just a joke!”
“I wish you had an older brother, too,” Lou yelled.
He stomped after her into the kitchen, unfurling a finger inches from her shocked face.
“This must stop. What have I done to deserve this, Beth Ann? How have I made this environment conducive to such frank talk? Jesus Christ, I work long hours. I just want some peace in this house. And I want to see you learn to be kind, for godsakes. Why are you like this?”
“Lou, calm down,” Beth said, plucking a cigarette from an open pack in the freezer. “We both already read that book.”
“Smoke that goddamn thing outside. I don’t want me and Peachy to die before our time just ’cause you’re so damn stupid!”
“Fine. Let’s go, Peachy. Lou’s clearly got his period.”
She sauntered out of the house, and I looked to Lou for that almost imperceptible nod that said Go after her. When she was like this, I did often join her. Not because I took her side. But rather because I was afraid that she’d feel abandoned or unloved, even when her banishment was self-inflicted.
We walked silently into town, over the tracks, past the high school, past the tavern and into the Starlite Variety. We strode down the toys and notions aisle to get to the cold drinks.
“Oh my God this place is depressing,” Beth whispered, holding up a toy soldier whose stern little face was pressed up against a loud plastic bag. “Imagine buying this for your kid? Mom was insane.” She tossed the doll onto the bottom shelf, then shoved a bag of Nibs down the front of her jeans. We paid for our pops and left, the glass door tinkling shut behind us. We ate and drank on the swing set until we sensed Lou’s storm was over, the same trip I’d make a year later—a stop at the Starlite before a vigil in the park—when a different drama played out on the Archer Compound.
chapter four
SAM AND JAKE loved their aunt the way children do when they can sense someone’s not terribly big on them. After Beth dropped her bag on the floor, and exactly twelve hours before she fucked my husband in our pantry, the boys had begun their aggressive preening. I loved how they’d trot out toys and tricks and books, hoping maybe one of those lucky props would do the job of puncturing Beth’s mysterious ambivalence toward them. It was heartbreakingly great of them. And though it troubled Beau, I couldn’t get enough of those parades. Made me root for them.
“Come here, boys, and let your gorgeous auntie grabble her hairy little monkeys!” Sam and Jake scrambled into her stomach, accidentally banging head-on into the fake boobs.
“Ow, boys, mind the machinery!”
Beth had recently replaced the old set of tits Lou accidentally bought her when she graduated. She had told him the money would go toward a Vespa to boot around Manhattan. But instead she parlayed the scooter into a stellar set of tits, which had sent Lou into a depressive funk for months.
“Where’d you pick up this idea that boobs are going to make you happy? How’d you come to think butchering your body’s the thing to do after all these years in this household? You were perfect like you were. For godsakes, Beth Ann, didn’t I teach y’all to be feminists? Nell would roll in her grave.”
“Yeah, so sorry I’m not following in her stellar footsteps, Lou. And I am a feminist. But I also want to be feminine. I think of myself as a feminine-icist.”
Eventually, she admitted that had she known some implants had to be replaced, she would never have gotten them done in the first place. But now that she owned no less than five thousand dollars’ worth of imported lingerie, there was no going back to the old A’s.
“Oh. That’s a fine rationale,” Lou had said. “Wanna know Victoria’s Secret? She doesn’t have one. ’Cause there’s nothing mysterious about her.”
“That’s why I don’t buy their cheap thongs.”
Beth hadn’t blown herself up to porn star proportions. She bought a firm pair of high C’s, the same I sported twice with the pregnancies, before they reverted back to their default consistency of loose tapioca spooned into Baggies. But I loved her too in that moment. Beth was an unhappy woman, completely and utterly by choice, I thought.
“Hi, Peach,” Beth said, straightening herself up and looking right at me. In her tone I could tell we had a long talk ahead of us.
“Hello, Miss Archer. Looking well,” I said, smiling and hugging her.
“Thank you, Mrs. Laliberté. As are you.”
“Tell me, Miss Archer, what brings you here on a Thursday may I ask?”
“Interesting question, Mrs. Laliberté. First of all, we’re not in production for six weeks, and since I own the show, I can do what I want, pretty much when I want. It’s called the perks.”
“How marvelous for you.”
“Yes, it is marvelous. Also,” she added, knowing her cover was blown, “on the morrow’s morn we are departing this little hellhole called home, because Jeb and Nadia are hosting a dinner party in your honor tomorrow night in Brooklyn, and we have fancy reservations on Saturday night. More on that later. And on Sunday, breakfast at Tartine before I take you to the airport.”
“Hmm … interesting. Are those places nearby? Because, you see, I have two young sons who need minding,” I said,
smiling over to the boys to cue their surprise reactions.
“Why no, they are not nearby. They are located in the city of New York, on the island of Manhattan. Come on down, Peachy Laliberté, you’re the next contestant on You’re Coming to New York With Your Sister Tomorrow!”
On cue, the boys knocked out their strangely aggressive little jazz numbers.
“So? Whaddya think, Peach? I know you’ve never flown and you don’t want to leave the boys, but—”
“Beth. Really. I can’t wait,” I said, pointing to my already-packed carry-all behind the front door.
“Beau, you have a big mouth,” Beth said, tiptoeing into the kitchen where he was digging out beers from the bottom of the fridge. She slapped his ass hard with an open palm. Then she began to dig down the back of his jeans to tug up his underwear, which made the boys giggle with delight. Beau squirmed away from her in discomfort.
“Ow. Hey, I didn’t say anything. Peachy’s the snoop.”
He knew I could get touchy about any intimacy between them. So did Beth, which is why she would launch these little attacks in the first place. It was her way of reasserting that his body was territory she had originally conquered, then discarded. She got there first, not me. And though I couldn’t imagine Beth wanting Beau again, he was, indeed, an average male starved for affection and attention, more so now since worrying about Sam’s illness had long supplanted sex as the number one thing I liked to do with my husband in bed.
As though to cut the tension caused by Beth’s teasing, the boys began their customary show-and-tell. Sam displayed several cool rocks he found by the river, one by one, on Nana Beecher’s oak table. And Jake talked through a hand puppet into Beth’s muscled shoulder, saying, “I’m Bernie. I can fly.” Beau poured Beth a beer into a glass, no doubt fighting off the image of having sex with the both of us at the same time. What would it be called? The Archer Deluxe?
Lou came up from the salon stripping off his hair-dye gloves like Gypsy Rose Lee. He’d recently booked a clutch of teenaged boys from town who all wanted bleached crew cuts.
“Hello, my love. How was the flight?”
“Fast. Nice. Nothing,” Beth said, standing up for one of Lou’s hugs.
“You are thin, Beth Ann. I feel like I’m clutching a bouquet of lollipops.”
“Good. That is the goal, Lou.”
We sat around the table for a few minutes focusing intently on the boys, while Beau wiped down the granite counter top, took out the cutting board, and tenderly laid out chicken breasts he’d marinated in mustard and honey.
“Peachy, after the barbecue, let’s go to the tavern for nightcaps. Beau can babysit,” Beth said, tunneling through Sam’s carefully placed stones to grab my hand. “I’ve got some more news about Marcus.”
I felt my heart leap at the sound of his name.
“I thought that was all over, Beth,” I whispered.
“Who’s Marcus?” Beau asked. I couldn’t tell if he sounded blandly curious or mildly jealous or both.
“Some guy who ripped out my heart.”
“Wow, was there a reward for finding it?”
“Score one for Beau,” Beth said.
Beau turned around holding a sauce brush. It was the first time I noticed he’d been wearing an apron.
“Hey, why is it, Beth, when a dad watches his kids, it’s called babysitting? And when Peachy does it, it’s called parenting?”
“Because, Beau, watching TV with your kids is not parenting. It’s sitting.”
“Oh, like you would know what parenting is? When’s the last time you volunteered to help out around here? You treat this place like it’s a hotel.”
Beth’s eyes widened and she looked at me as though to say, Do something about your husband. I too was a little shocked at the tension between them.
“Beau, just cook, okay?” I said.
Sam came over to Beth’s side to straighten up his stones. She put a hand on his head and messed his hair a little, mouthing to me, “How is he?”
I searched for neutral words. “We don’t know yet.”
“What don’t you know?” Jake asked, helping his brother with the stones.
“Anything. We don’t know anything,” I said, looking at Beth, trying to read the weather on her face.
“Well, I know something,” she said, a hint of accusation in her voice.
“What do you know?” Sam asked, thinking we were talking in code about him or his condition, something he hated.
“Nothing. It’s about your mother, Sam.”
“What about Peachy?” Beau asked, keeping his back to us. I kicked Beth under the table.
“Nothing, I’m just teasing, Beau,” Beth said. “As if Peachy’s got secrets.”
“Yeah, as if I would have secrets,” I said, trying to deflate suspicion by acting exaggeratedly suspicious. She kept her eyes on me. The only person in the room who could tell we had been up to something was Lou.
“Okay, let’s change the subject. Peachy, let’s get drunk tonight, shall we?” Beth said, draining her beer and slamming the glass on the table.
“No driving then,” Lou said. “I’ll happily drop you off and pick you up at Earl’s. Okay, ladies?”
Lou gave me his look that said, I am not judging Beth’s drinking, but I have been noting its subtle, though unmistakable, escalation, as are you, Peachy. So enjoy yourself tonight, but not that much.
“Thanks, Dad, but I’m taking it easy tonight,” I said, pointing to my beer.
The gravel driveway announced more arrivals.
“Uh-oh, Lucy and Leo are here. Be nice, they’re having ‘the troubles,’” Beau said, holding the plattered breasts. Beau’s older sister Lucy fought with her husband so often that they indeed made the institution of marriage sound like Ireland, a once lush paradise ruined by messy children, too much drinking, and religion.
“I’m heading the hell out back,” Beau said. “Tell Leo to bring the kids there. Boys, let’s go. You can fire up the Water Willy, Sam.”
“What about me?” Lou said.
“You ref.”
“Not on your life,” Lou said, scrambling after Beau.
“I’ll ref,” Sam said, making his way over to the laptop on the desk. “I want to play some Scrabble.”
I felt a twinge of anxiety. I had been waiting for an email all day. But I didn’t have the heart to force Sam outside. Jenny was four, Micha six, perfect ages for Jake, but Sam was trying to outgrow his cousins. Plus, he was afraid of having a spell and peeing his pants in front of the younger children. The doorbell rang.
“Why, I’ll get it,” Beth said, acting Southern and dopey.
“Be nice,” I repeated.
“I am always nice. Lucy is the cunt.”
Lucy’s sturdy animosity toward Beth took root in high school and had flourished ever since Beth had broken Beau’s heart. It was a weird resentment but so consistent I no longer challenged its longevity. When Beth opened the door, Lucy’s expression was of someone who had accidentally stumbled onto a teeming wall of maggoty garbage.
“Well, hello to you too, Luce,” Beth said.
“Beth Ann. Hi, Peachy. Where’s Beau and the boys?” She was holding a present for Lou.
“They’re all out back,” I said.
“I was hoping we could crash here tonight if we drink too much, but it looks like you won’t have the room,” Lucy said.
“You can share my bed, Luce,” Beth said, knocking a cigarette out of her pack and heading toward the back porch. We kept her room almost exactly as she’d left it, though she often opted to sleep on the converted couch in Lou’s air-conditioned Silverstream, especially in the summertime.
“Thanks, Beth, but no. I think I’d like to remain about the only person in town you haven’t slept with.”
“Sorry to break it to you, Luce, but you’re not my type anyway.”
“Please, people, please,” I said, holding up my hands. “We are almost middle-aged women now, and no one’s drun
k enough for this. You guys can put the camper up if you want, Luce.”
“We’ll play it by ear,” she said.
Beth slammed the back door and Sam turned around.
“Auntie Lucy wanna play Scrabble on the computer? It’s very cool. I’ll show you how.”
My boy, my boy, my beautiful boy. I was trying hard to ignore him that night, or rather, to not monitor his every move and sound. Lucy sat down next to him at the piano bench. The corn boiled on the stove, and for an instant I felt a sense of fortune settle around my shoulders. I was thinking, This is a good life. Don’t do anything to threaten this life. Why would you even want to?
Through the window I could see Beau out back standing over the barbecue like a conductor. Leo suddenly startled me by tapping on the glass with his awful opal pinkie ring. I gave him a weak smile. Years earlier, before Jenny and Micha were born, Leo had a fling with his Korean manicurist. I was shocked, not by the crime, but by the fact that he went to a manicurist.
“What kind of guy goes to a manicurist?” I had asked Beau. I had just had Sam, and my body had dropped so much weight from the breast-feeding, I could fit into Beth’s sexy red hand-me-down sundress.
“The dickhead kind,” Beau said.
After the whole thing blew up, Lucy spent six weeks with us crying as often as my new baby. One morning I held a firm finger, microphonelike, in Beau’s face.
“No infidelity, no adultery, no divorce, no irreconcilable differences. Got me?” I said. “None of those words in this house. There is no room for them.”
Date, flirt, cheat, those were “Beth Words,” single-people words, each a tiny, stupid Ikea-type name for replaceable things like lamps, cups, ashtrays. Beth could cheat on her guys, tests, and taxes, and the consequences were negligible. But we had a mahogany hutch, a chesterfield, antimacassars, hydrangea bushes, a burgeoning oak, from which we had plans to cut another table. Our kitchen was carved out of granite and stainless steel, these were all married words, and our house was full of them. Even the word husband had always invoked in me the permanency of mortgages, God, and cattle.
The Almost Archer Sisters Page 5