“So, what’s your movie about?” she asked. “I assume it takes place in Miami. Do you play a police officer?”
“Actually, no,” replied Don. “It’s set in Maine. It’s a saga of three generations of a shipbuilding family. I play the heir to the fortune. I’m trying to engage in more serious work.”
Erica was trying to wrap her mind around Don trapped in a winter coat, buffeted by frigid North Atlantic winds, engaging in whatever he believed to be serious, when one of his handlers whisked him away. She floated through the rest of the reception, drifting in and out of conversations and finally reconnecting with Ethan to sit down to a dinner that meandered dreamily from tuna tartare to chocolate mousse pie, each course accompanied by continually refilled glasses of red wine.
The movie was disappointing. The plot revolved around three generations of family secrets and dysfunctions, with Don looking more tight-lipped and constipated than serious. She’d anticipated him loping among palm trees evading gunfire, and instead he strode stiffly along cold and rocky cliffs colored in navy and purple and gray. Erica’s cocoon of soft sand and fragrant tropical air evaporated, and she became aware of a dank odor in the theater and her heavy head. She rested against Ethan’s shoulder and fell asleep, waking to see the credits drift across the screen.
Outside she revived slightly. In the city, the night was young. People were still eating in outdoor cafes and walking down the sidewalk arm in arm. She crooked her arm through Ethan’s. A light rain pelted her shoulders; the air reeked faintly of garbage. They waited on the first floor of the parking garage for the attendant to fetch the car, inhaling the wet exhaust.
Ethan offered to drive. Erica started to complain, but feeling six Bellinis, uncounted glasses of wine, and years of inadequate sleep, held her tongue. He pushed the driver’s seat back to accommodate his knees while Erica leaned against the leather passenger seat, and then they were moving, and she was staring numbly at the taxis whizzing by, too exhausted to even give direction. Ethan headed for the Manhattan Bridge, a route Erica always avoided because the stone arch at the beginning gave her the creeps. To her, it resembled an archaeological find, like the head of the Statue of Liberty at the end of the Planet of the Apes movie. When New York City inevitably imploded, nothing would remain of this vibrating and glittering metropolis but rubble and floating plastic bags, save this one ornate granite arch.
As they crossed over the Manhattan Bridge, the Mercedes heating system kicked in overly hard. “It feels like the Sahara in here,” she said.
“Adjust the vent,” Ethan suggested. He jerked his head right and left, trying to remember which way to turn after exiting the bridge.
“Turn left,” Erica told him, playing around with the little black knob. All it did was increase the flow of hot dry air. A layer of sweat pooled under the neckline of Erica’s dress, trickling down between her swollen breasts. “Nothing helps. It’s still hot.”
Ethan didn’t respond. He was concentrating intensely on his driving, navigating past an overflowing garbage truck and some fallen construction debris, casting his eyes about for a street sign that would tell him what to do.
“Turn right here,” Erica said, slipping off her mother’s cape with the golden embroidered collar. “Take the BQE.”
She unzipped her dress down to the center of her back and placed her hand on Ethan’s thigh. “I met Don Johnson at the reception, did I tell you? He’s actually better looking in real life than he is on Miami Vice.”
“You already told me,” Ethan said, gripping the wheel tightly and leaning forward to read an upcoming sign. He’d taken his contacts out and put on his glasses, like he often did when he was tired. The glasses gave him a vulnerable, nerdy look. “I exit here for the Grand Central, right?” he asked. The exit ramp to the Grand Central popped up with little warning, a black hole in the sulfurous haze. Ethan slid over into the right lane, cutting off yet another garbage truck. The truck honked loudly.
“Asshole,” Ethan muttered softly to himself.
Erica opened the window a crack and let the cool, stinky air ripple through the car.
Many years ago, on another night when Ethan was driving, a night shortly after they were married and living in a rental on Beacon Hill in Boston, a thick heavy summer night when it was 4:00 a.m. and they were still wide awake, Erica slipped her entire dress off in the car. Then she pulled her panties off. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She unbuttoned Ethan’s shirt while he was driving, unzipped his pants, nuzzled his neck as he narrowly missed the fender of a double-parked taxi. He pulled into an illegal parking space by a water hydrant, where they made love in the front seat. Stark-naked, Ethan then drove them home and parked the car in a legitimate spot. They walked half a block down to their brownstone, opened the deadbolt, walked through the lobby with its dirty marble floor and rows of mailboxes, walked up two flights of stairs, and then negotiated the three locks on their apartment door. Nobody noticed, or nobody cared. All their neighbors were gay or asleep or both. Dylan was born exactly 270 days later. Ethan accepted the job at Grant Fishel, and Mom sold them their Dutch colonial in West Meadow Knolls.
The neon Hebrew National Salami sign shone through the fog, signaling their arrival in Queens. Ethan relaxed now that they had passed the most insane tangles of traffic and were cruising relatively unimpeded past row houses, pizzerias, and bagel bakeries, sailing toward home with James Taylor on the tape deck.
“I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep,” he said. “I think I’m going to start running again. I feel like a slug.”
“Don’t forget, we have to stop at Lisa’s and pick up the kids,” Erica reminded him. Her head hurt. Her skin itched. The tag on her new dress poked stiffly into her neck. She slid uncomfortably around the leather seat.
Lisa helped Erica and Ethan carry heavy lumps of sleeping child into the Mercedes.
“I’m still waiting up for Lyndsey,” Lisa said. “She’s at a party with your nephew, Jared. They’ve got an English class together. She told me she’d call. Stupid me, I didn’t get the number of the house the party is at. I’m not even sure of the kid’s name.”
Erica thought of Jared’s new haircut, his wide stoned eyes. “I’m sure she’ll be home soon,” she said. She didn’t want to worry Lisa.
“Oh my God, the phone is ringing,” Lisa said, running toward the house.
When Ethan and Erica walked into their kitchen, Erica noticed that her own answering machine blinked an angry neglected red. It bothered her, but she left it alone. Four sleeping kids needed settling in their rooms, and she could barely stagger up the stairs.
CHAPTER FIVE
Despite her exhaustion, Erica lay awake for a long time, prostrate on her new 100 percent Egyptian cotton pinstriped sheets, listening to Ethan’s snores and watching clouds drift by the skylight like celestial TV. When she finally fell into a spotty sleep, images—not quite dreams—startled her awake. Red blinking lights. Red blinking sun. White sky, white-hot sand, burning feet, sun-bleached camel skulls. Whimpering, bleating emaciated goats. No, red blinking lights on the baby monitor and the whimpering bleating of baby Sophia. She staggered to her feet, stumbled into the bathroom and gulped water still warm from the tap until it pooled heavily at the base of her belly.
The sight and scent of her mother threw Sophia into even stronger paroxysms of screaming. She arched her back against the sheets, her mouth opening into a perfect circle. Erica picked her up, her nightgown down at her shoulder, inhaling Sophia’s intoxicating brew of urgency and milk. The baby attached to Erica’s nipple with a satisfied snap as they stood by the crib. Together, the two of them clumped down into the big chenille rocking chair.
It was unusually warm for March, and humid. A fetid odor of defrosting mud and diesel exhaust blew in from the window, cracked open a notch. Malodorous as it was, the breeze still carried with it a note of spring. As Sophia sucked hard on her breast, Erica
turned her head, observing the rectangle of nighttime observable through the window: the oak tree to the right, limbs shuddering in the wind; the line of black road behind it; the Krauscheks’ brick house across the street, its windows blank and dark.
She burped Sophia. Milk dribbled down Erica’s back. Sophia’s mouth dropped open, indicating deep sleep. There was a milk blister on her lower lip. Erica lowered her gently into her crib and then climbed back into bed with Ethan, pressing her body against his back, slipping her hands around his sides and resting them against the softness of his belly. He grunted gently, rolling onto his stomach, and as he did so, the baby monitor once again emitted an insistent cry.
Erica and Sophia resumed their position in the chenille chair. “I’m sorry, Sophia,” Erica whispered to her daughter, sorry for leaving her with Lisa all evening, sorry for attempting to drug her with Bellini-laced milk, sorry for any other ways she might have failed her. Her mind drifted toward sand again, but this time gentle, enveloping sand, lapped by turquoise water, warmed by a benevolent sun. Don Johnson lay next to her wearing white swim trunks. His head rested on his raised right elbow; a shock of dirty blond hair fell into his eyes. He smelled of coconut oil and salt.
In the rectangle of the open window, a touch of light infiltrated the sky. A lone car, an ancient wood-sided station wagon, drove by, its headlights shimmering in the navy-gray light. The car skidded to a stop in front of their house. A gnome-like man stepped out, tossing the Sunday paper with his gnarled hand. The paper missed the front stoop, falling with a clunk into the arborvitae. As it did so, from a distance came a high-pitched shriek, like a radio disaster test. When the shriek sounded again, Erica realized it was the phone.
Cradling Sophia to her like a football, Erica raced down the stairs, managing to pick up just as the answering machine went on.
“Rikki! Where have you been? I was just about to hang up!” Erica’s mother shouted, competing with the message machine recording of Jesse singing “Baby Beluga.”
“I was feeding the baby. It’s 6:00 a.m. I almost dropped her running down here. You could have left a message on the machine.”
“I already left a message on the machine. Didn’t you check your messages when you got home from that party?”
Erica leaned against the counter for balance. Her answering machine was blinking, scarlet as a blood clot.
Debbie. It had to be Debbie. Debbie’s bruises, the ones that unnerved her so on Friday. The bruises were leukemia, blood gone fiendishly wrong, blood pooling against her skin. Debbie was lying flat in a hospital bed, IV lines threading in and out, monitors registering her heartbeat in cold white lines. No, more likely it was another one of Debbie’s accidents. She had fallen down the stairs. She’d slipped off the ladder she climbed so often, dusting figurines on a top shelf or vacuuming her drapes.
“What’s wrong with Debbie?” Erica squeaked.
“Debbie?” Suzanne sounded startled. “There’s nothing wrong with Debbie. It’s Jared!”
Jared. His stomach. So his stomachaches weren’t an excuse to avoid the family, to lie on his back on his own bed, in his own world, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, letting whatever Debbie termed his “horrible music” wash over him. No, there really was something seriously amiss with his digestive system, some undiagnosed disease rotting his insides, and now he was bleeding, hemorrhaging, lying in a hospital bed with IV tubes threading in and out and his heartbeat registered in cold white lines.
“What’s wrong with Jared’s stomach?” Erica pulled a footstool over with her big toe and leaned against it, Sophia heavy on her chest.
“His stomach?” Mom sounded more befuddled than ever. “They pumped his stomach, but. . .”
“Why did they pump his stomach?” Balancing Sophia precariously against her shoulder she filled the coffee carafe with one hand, pressing the phone between her shoulder and her stiff neck.
“He was unconscious. Ron found him lying on the front lawn and rushed him to the emergency room. He drank too much at some crazy party. His alcohol level was twenty-three!”
“Nobody’s blood alcohol could be twenty-three, Mom,” Erica said. “They’d be dead. Are you sure you don’t mean point twenty-three?”
“Well, what does it matter—he almost died!” Mom’s disembodied voice crackled loudly through the receiver, so high-pitched it set Erica’s eardrum to vibrating. Her bladder swelled to bursting.
“I have to pee,” Erica said.
“What are you going to do?” Mom bleated. “Jared is in the hospital. Your sister is besides herself.”
“Pee,” Erica said, walking toward the bathroom. As she sat on the toilet, still juggling the baby and the phone, she assured her mother she would call Debbie immediately.
She did call Debbie, but no one answered. She drank a quart of orange juice directly from the carton, a bad habit she’d picked up from Ethan. The baby was finally sleeping. Not wanting to risk waking her on the trip upstairs, she placed her in the playpen in the family room. A better sister would have, she supposed, checked her answering machine last night and been there for Debbie during this time of trouble. A better sister, she supposed, would not be so exhausted by the demands of her own inconsequential life. She lay down on the couch, her limbs splayed out among Matchbox cars and stray Cheerios, and fell soundly asleep.
When she woke up, the sky was fully light, a uniform gray. Sophia was still sleeping, resting against a stuffed bear in her playpen as Jesse and Jake circled around her, eating Fruit Roll-Ups and chasing each other with plastic swords. “I’m going to throw you into the dungeon!” cried Jesse, stabbing Jake in the abdomen. On the TV, a green furry creature sang a song about world peace. In the background, she heard the hum of the Apple IIGS, Dylan playing Rosella. To the accompaniment of ominous music, cyber zombies swarmed a cyber graveyard.
“Daddy said to tell you he went running,” Jesse said.
The coffee carafe was filled with Ethan’s allegedly superior hand-ground artisan coffee, a Christmas gift from his parents. Honestly, she couldn’t detect a major difference from Chock Full O’ Nuts, but she poured herself a large mug.
This time she called North Shore Hospital, asking for Jared Lassler’s room.
Jared answered the phone, sounding healthy enough.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Erica said.
“Yeah, I’m just great,” he answered in a sardonic tone new to Erica. “Grandma and Grandpa are here making disappointed faces at me.”
“Where are your parents?” Erica asked.
“Downstairs. Signing me out of here. Probably signing me into a psycho hospital.”
“I doubt they’d do that,” Erica said. She hung on the phone, listening to the interplay between Jared’s breathing and her household’s ambient noise: the zombies, still making their creepy music; dancing giraffes on the TV; the clash of plastic swords. “Say, Jared,” Erica said. “All hell is breaking loose here. I’ll come see you at home this afternoon.”
“Sure,” Jared said. “If you want. If they haven’t sent me to a psycho hospital.”
Erica told Ethan about Jared when he returned from running.
“Wow,” he said, guzzling the remainder of the juice from its container and panting. “That run was more than I bargained for. I gotta quit smoking. I tell myself they’re only herbal cigarettes, but it’s smoking nonetheless. Is Jared okay?”
“I guess,” Erica said. “I told him I’d visit this afternoon. Can you watch the kids?”
“Sure,” Ethan said. “As long as you’re home by four. I’ve got a tennis game. God, I could use a nap.”
In Ethan’s family, the phone did not ring at six in the morning. He really didn’t talk to his family very much at all. Birthday presents and newsy Christmas letters arrived from his parents on schedule. Every other year, the Richards family gathered for a reunion a
t some tasteful and interesting spot like Yosemite or Mendocino. His family boogie-boarded and cross-country skied. Every summer his sister, Pauline, who lived in Santa Rosa, sent them a spice rub made from herbs growing in her organic garden.
: : :
Debbie was in the process of loading the dishwasher when Erica stopped by. From the backyard Erica heard the whirring of Ron’s hedge clipper.
“Want some tea or something?” Debbie asked. “What a day.”
Erica caught a whiff of lemon air freshener. “No, thanks,” she said. “I promised Jared I’d come see him.”
Debbie’s face tightened, revealing thin vertical lines Erica had not noticed before, on either side of her bare lips. “He’s taking a nap,” she said, sweeping crumbs down the sink drain.
“Can’t I say hello?” Erica leaned against the spotless refrigerator, dislodging the magnetic parrot clip Debbie used to hold messages.
Debbie frowned. “I guess so,” she said. “But don’t wake him if he’s sleeping.”
Jared was perched on his elbows, lying on his bed watching Nickelodeon and eating chips. REM’s album Fables of the Reconstruction, which she’d wanted to buy but hadn’t gotten around to even though it had been out almost a year, played on his stereo. His walls were still papered with the same soccer ball motif Ron had put up ten years before, but Jared had covered the paper over almost totally with posters of rock stars in leather and studded bracelets, plus one incongruous photograph of Darryl Strawberry straddling home plate.
Wrong Highway Page 5