Rich Friends

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  “That needn’t have stopped me from writing. The truth, Cricket, is, I ran away. I thought I wouldn’t be any good, so I ran away. I quit.”

  “Daddy, give Vliet a job.”

  “Haven’t you been listening?”

  “You’re trying to tell me he should keep on at school. But you’re wrong. He’s not like you. He’s more, well, commercial.”

  “Commercial? That’s all the more reason for him to keep going. A Beverly Hills specialist makes far more than I do.”

  “Under any conditions, he’s not going back.”

  “Honey, don’t encourage him.”

  “It’s what’s right,” Cricket said.

  “Your aunt lives for those boys. Did Mother ever tell you the story how Aunt Em arranged with your great-grandmother to put her own inheritance—the money she would’ve had—in trust for the twins? They aren’t wealthy people, and then they were in a very tight spot. She made a tremendous sacrifice. The boys’re her life. Especially Vliet. She’s beside herself.”

  “What about Vliet? Isn’t it his life, too?”

  Gene chose not to reply.

  The following morning Cricket woke after he had left. She pursued him to the Assyrian fort that took a full block of Pico Boulevard. Van Vliet’s Warehouses No. 1 and No. 2, and home offices. There, across his gleaming presidential desk, Gene admitted that Vliet was personable, great with people, intelligent, and—most important—his frame of reference was money. “He adds up to the compleat executive.” Gene stopped, his face concerned. His resemblance to a faithful hound had not abated. “Cricket, honey, tell me what it is? What’s wrong?” Just then, Mrs. Saenz buzzed. Time for his next appointment. “We’ll go into it later. But about Vliet, I can’t. Your mother’d flay me. Em’s mental on the subject.”

  Hearing muffled voices in the front hall, Em tilted her wrist with a practiced movement. For years now, her dishwasher hadn’t run without liquor, the vacuum cleaner had needed a shot. Em’s use of alcohol almost never reached the visible stages of jollity or despair: her nipping was a deadener of subliminal frustration. This, though, was too much.

  It was unlike Em to be bitter. Yet she couldn’t help thinking of the comfort—cash—she had denied herself and Sheridan, of how hard she had worked, making sure the twins got well-balanced meals, finished their homework every night, and went to Sunday school, never quarreled but stayed close to one another as their carefully fitted Stride Rite shoes strode up the path to success. Now all this was wasted. Em had no idea what had happened at the cabin, but in her bones she knew at the bottom she would find Alix. Somehow the girl was ruining Em’s life. However much Em drank, she couldn’t anesthetize herself against the pain. Her sense of justice took a permanent break. I can’t bear to see the girl. Never, never, never. Em deposited her glass next to the water carafe that contained vodka.

  Cricket opened venetian blinds, admitting strips of grayish light. How young she looks, Em thought, and let her fingers torture her brow.

  She whimpered, “Light hurts.”

  Cricket readjusted cords.

  “It’s my migraine.”

  “Want an icebag, Aunt Em?”

  “No, thank you, dear.”

  Cricket sat on Sheridan’s bed. “It’s Vliet,” she said.

  (A minute ago, when Vliet had let her in, he had been wearing his dark suit. She had inquired why. “Congratulate me, that’s why. Executive came through. I’ve got this position with A&P—providing I change my name to Wladislas or something.”)

  “I’ve got to talk to you about Vliet.”

  Em’s wrinkles deepened. She shot her niece, whom she loved, a look of fury. “He’s in his room. Listen.”

  They listened. Bouncy, scratched music. For an instant Em’s expression softened. “It’s ‘Getting Sentimental over You,’” she said. “He’s packing.”

  “He’s not.”

  Em gripped her forehead again. “Please God, you never get migraines. As you leave, dear, close the blinds properly.”

  Cricket drew a breath. “I’m not going yet,” she said in her clear voice.

  Em turned her head, moaning.

  “Listen, please listen, Aunt Em. Vliet’s graduated from Harvard. He’s never been in trouble. Everybody likes him. The family loves him. He’s a success. You’re a success.”

  “I don’t hear you!”

  “Aunt Em, he’s going to work at A&P if you don’t let Daddy give him a job.”

  “He and Roger are very fortunate! Uncle Sheridan never had their advantages. They never have to scrimp. There’s money for them to finish the best medical school.”

  “Please let Daddy.”

  Em, perfumed in Vick’s VapoRub to drown any aroma of alcohol, pushed to sitting position, her long-sleeved gown momentarily trapping her. “You listen to me, you!” The voice, precariously on edge. “There’s one thing I want. Only one thing out of life. And that’s for my sons to have the best. And for that, they must persevere. And that, Cricket, is why I don’t hear you!”

  “Vliet enjoys business—”

  “It’s that terrible girl!” Em cried, her voice over the edge now, rasping, drunken, hopeless. “That Alix!”

  And, eyes closed, she fell into pillows.

  Cricket ran for the icebag.

  “What in the name of God did you say to your aunt?” Gene wanted to know.

  “What did she tell you?” Cricket’s voice shook. Her scene with Em hadn’t worn off. It was the same evening, and Gene, in his navy robe, had just climbed circular steel to her aerie.

  “A half hour ago we had our annual sisterly eye gouging.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Em called to say she’d had a terrible migraine which you’d aggravated into the mother of all headaches. Oh, she didn’t really blame you. Mostly she ranted about Alix.”

  “She really has it in for Alix.”

  “But she did feel you were meddling in affairs that didn’t concern a child. Your mother isn’t one to take this lying down. She countered that Em’s overgrown lunk was harrying you. One thing led to another. And it came out you’d told a heinous lie. Vliet is starting at A&P.”

  “It’s not a lie.”

  “I know.” Gene patted his knee. Loving him, never considering deeper hang-ups, Cricket sat. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t have to mention we’re both delighted with you, do I?”

  She hugged him. Parental esteem, or lack thereof, never had been a problem with Cricket. She knew they loved her.

  “Now, honey, tell me what’s wrong?”

  She left his lap, picking up a proof sheet. Film shot in Arrowhead: tiny pictures on slick paper showing Roger in Cousin Sidney Sutherland’s new boat.

  “I called Vliet back,” Gene said. “He told me it wasn’t an important offer, but he was taking it. So I told him to go see Don.” Don Dalton, the barrel-shaped head of Van Vliet’s personnel. “Don’ll put him in the training program.”

  The battle was over.

  She’d won.

  Cricket clutched the proof sheet. Before each of her operations, a nurse would suck on a little rubber tube to get blood samples. She’d won. So why should she feel this slow draining?

  “You didn’t mention me?” she asked. “To Vliet?”

  “What? And let him know my daughter makes my business decisions?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Cricket, let me help you.”

  “You have, Daddy.”

  “Since you got down from Arrowhead, you’ve been different. You’re not you. You don’t push this way.”

  “Must be the family determination coming out.”

  Gene didn’t smile. Thumbnail pressed between bottom incisors, he examined her. “Whatever it is,” he said slowly, “we’re here when you need us.”

  “I feel terrible about Aunt Em.”

  “She’ll forgive you. In time, even me.”

  “But not Alix.”

  “No, not Alix.”

  He kissed Cricket goodnig
ht. After he had disappeared down the stairwell, she stood at the dark circle of windows.

  An owl lived in the hillside sycamore. Hoo hoo hoo. When you win, you lessen the other person. She had shrunk her father. And somehow herself. And that was why she felt this crazy siphoning. Family determination? Hoo hoo hoo. Sighing, she got in bed.

  “I never could do that again,” she whispered. “I can’t fight.”

  Her seventeenth birthday was July 10. She had slept with Vliet at the end of April. By her birthday she’d known for some time it was fight or run. So run it was. She thanked God the ice had been broken last year. (Cricket didn’t have enough savvy to know she also should thank Him for making her a daughter of liberal, upper-middle-class Californians in the late sixties. She was not on drugs, she had graduated from high school, and therefore on the Mathenys’ socioeconomic level was considered a job well done. Despite her parents’ trepidations—and they had plenty—it was an article of their faith that from here on in—if they loved their child—it was hands off.)

  Gene took in the Buick for a complete overhaul. Caroline, reeking with Interdit, hugged her small daughter good-bye, slipping her a fifty to augment the wad of traveler’s checks. And Cricket was off, as Caroline put it, “to take pictures around Carmel, she’ll stay with a group of friends.” This explanation was received with commiserating sympathy. Who in Caroline’s and Gene’s circle didn’t have a child bent on some oddball way of life?

  4

  1. Love your Spiritual Father as you love life.

  2. Incline your heart to the teachings of your Spiritual Father and obey him in all matters.

  3. Share all that you possess with the family of your Spiritual Father.

  4. Cast off your old life and dwell in the current of the eternal now.

  5. Harm not your body by food, drink, or knife.

  6. Eat not the flesh of animal nor fowl nor fish.

  7. The man and his woman are united: let nothing separate them.

  8. Come together, O man and woman, only when forces of physical, mental, and emotional love are in perfect harmony.

  9. Harm no person, including your own self, with knife, deed, or word.

  10. Dwell in peace with those in the home of your Spiritual Father that your days may be happy and long.

  The commandments had been etched on a panel of the great hall. Below, a pottery vase half as tall as a man was filled with branches dangling reddish berries. A scorching afternoon at the end of July. Thick walls kept out the heat. Giles sat on the only chair, tugging his graying beard, while Cricket, on a tatami, explained her predicament. She called him Giles. “I’m not Giles now,” he interrupted. “Daughter, call me Genesis.” “Genesis,” she said, and her voice receded. The pungent odor of sugar bush drifted around them.

  “Your folks,” he inquired, “do they know?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “They’d get me an abortion.”

  He leaned forward. The skin above his beard showed craters from long-ago acne.

  “They love me,” she said. “They’d feel it was best. They’d insist. I can’t fight them. I’m not good at fighting. They’d talk me into it, I know they would. That’s why I came.”

  “What’ll you do with the child?”

  “Keep it.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, here.”

  “And the father?” asked Giles—no, Genesis.

  “He doesn’t know, either.”

  “He’d’ve insisted, too?”

  She could visualize Vliet sidestepping fatherhood gracefully: Cricket, keed, for Chrissake, this isn’t downtown Dresden with the B-29s on the way. There’s this very good man. Clean and safe. And after that, he would not be able to force himself into a room with her.

  “He don’t care about you?”

  “He’s my cousin. It’s impossible. He loves me, too, but I’m like a little sister. Not his type.” She nodded. “He’d insist.”

  “Ever think how strange? The world out there loves with a knife.” Genesis spoke with the impersonal rancor he always used on life beyond this sanctuary. He paced, short, thick legs coming down heavy on old boards. His footsteps reverberated through Cricket’s seated body. “In crises,” he said, “a person can’t accept revelation.”

  “But this is the only place I have!”

  “We need to resolve all past conflict before we’re free to become.”

  “Then I can’t stay?” Her question, high-pitched and anxious, traveled through shadows.

  He came back to sit in his chair. “Not as one of us,” he said slowly. “But you can stay.”

  “Thank you.” Her muscles were limp with reprieve. “Thank you. I’ll pay.”

  He glanced up at engraved wood. Share all that you possess.

  She flushed. “I’ll work.”

  “Got your camera?”

  She nodded.

  “Customers at REVELATION sometimes ask about us. The way we live. There’s quite a few who’re curious, and never mind why. Others, though, are sincere. The words I come up with can be taken wrong. Sniggered at. But a photograph—people don’t laugh at a photograph.”

  How he hated to be laughed at! She said, “I’ll get across the feel of REVELATION. I’ll try, really try, Genesis.”

  “After, you’ll be one of us.”

  “Thank you.”

  “One thing, daughter.” He raised a thick, warning finger. “Don’t mention the baby.”

  This, also she remembered. He snipped secrets from people to wear like amulets against his leonine chest.

  “There will be no way to hide it,” she said.

  “When the time comes, I’ll tell everyone.” The words were spoken as law. Fond and paternal, but law.

  She dug from her purse the keys to the Buick, her traveler’s checks, her wallet with the scented fifty-dollar bill, her Union Oil card. These she turned over to Genesis in accordance with commandment No. 3.

  Genesis himself had burned the commandments into wood. As REVELATION had grown—and now there were thirty-one members, plus four girls including Cricket in a state of limbo—he had formulated an orthodoxy.

  Like Jesuits, the group were obedient to a centralized authority. Genesis. For each minor decision he had a rule, for every act a regulation. They knew at five they would be washing with ice water, at eight they would eat their uncooked breakfast, they would bob a head to greet one another. Sundays, women sewed at the long table while men would take turns reading aloud from Hesse and Gibran. People instinctively yearn to be told what to do—if only to have something to rebel against. These offspring of America’s upper-income bracket had found their old lives chaotic. They had been excused from working. College classes had been liberated of roll-taking, not obligatory. Each day had been a desert and no signpost to help them cross it. In REVELATION the Select (as members now were called) had crept into the immutable freedom where there’s not a single decision to make.

  Unaware of time as a little cat, Cricket drifted around tables and into the kitchen, getting the restaurant on film. One time she snapped Genesis with his knives. “Don’t!” he barked. For once, his chesty gravel voice was out of control. As penitence, she took him with arms akimbo, eyes thoughtful under white headband, a very fine shot, and borrowing her car plus three dollars of her money, she drove to Monterey and had the picture blown to poster size. She presented it to Genesis. Delighted, he hammered the poster to a wall. That very day a customer requested a copy. Genesis had a dozen printed, selling them for five dollars each.

  Carmel Valley turned from gray-green to rich, late-summer brown. Cricket’s pregnancy never localized into a lump. Beneath the loose white clothes of REVELATION her body appeared to have spread into adolescent pudge, and she had no difficulty keeping her promise not to tell. She felt fine. Fine. Doctors were anathema here, but she remembered reading about calcium and so drank quarts of raw, unpasteurized milk. Her only craving, sunflower seeds. She cached them in her
pockets, and her small white teeth were forever cracking papery shells. She bounced through the daily trip to Carmel until she had well over a hundred rolls, then she set up her developing equipment in the never-used butler’s pantry of the Chinese compound.

  To make a print, light must pass through the negative onto light-sensitive paper. Cricket experimented with a technique called dodging, covering a place to keep it lighter, thus darkening the background. She redid the poster chiaroscuro like a Rembrandt. Genesis, delighted, had these printed.

  She wasn’t in the restaurant that overcast Friday morning in early October. Neither was Genesis.

  That was the morning the Select found Murderer! slashed in heavy black paint across Cricket’s work. The patio buzzed like a disturbed apiary. Who had printed this slander? Who in this uptight resort, who in this unenlightened town? One by one, they were drawn to trace jagged lettering. Murderer! Just before the lunch trade arrived, Orion tore it down.

  They drove home in blue-hazed twilight. Genesis sat in the great hall. Everyone halted on the veranda. At last, Orion, breathing in audible gasps, extended the ripped poster. Genesis stared. His bearded face turned terrible and still, as if he were viewing a Gorgon. They shrank back. His heavy footsteps echoed across tile paving. The door to his room slammed.

  Nobody spoke. Finally, one of the women went to the kitchen house. The other women followed. After dinner both sexes gathered in a circle of lantern light talking about the guacamole pie they’d eaten for dinner, the morning fog, the ways to seat more customers. Anything except Murderer!

  Cricket huddled alone on the dark steps of the hall. Orion, straining his eyes, went to her. He thought he loved her to desperation. That he didn’t was a technicality. She was the first girl he’d ever felt relaxed with.

  “Come be with us,” he said.

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  “Is it, you know?” he whispered tenderly. Orion alone had noticed she was pregnant. She had bound him to secrecy for Genesis’ sake, amen.

  “Uhh-uh. No.” Cricket put her lips to her bare upper arm, the way children extract comfort from their own flesh. “Orion, we don’t know Genesis. Who he was or what he did.”

  “What’s the difference? He’s shown us how to live.”