Jared’s skin was a mite sallow and still pimpled; short strands of peroxided hair were plastered to his scalp. But basically it was the same baby face, the same full lips and wide eyes he’d had when she’d pushed him for hours in the rubber swings at West Meadow Elementary School.
“Hi, Aunt Rikki,” he said.
“That’s Fables of the Reconstruction, right?” she asked.
“Yeah.” His voice betrayed the slightest hint of enthusiasm.
“REM is so much better than most of the junk you hear on the radio,” Erica said, sitting down at the edge of his bed. Jared assumed, she was certain, that all adults were alike: that once you hit a certain age, all your spirit disappeared. She wanted to break through the wall of indifference that separated them and prove him wrong. She wasn’t anything like his parents. “Most music now is so cold and commercial,” she added.
“True,” Jared said. Cartoon cats leaped across the television screen. He pointed at her mother’s zirconium-studded evening bag, which Erica was still using, having forgotten to transfer her keys and wallet back to her everyday leather one. “Nice bag,” he said, in his newly acquired sardonic tone. In the light of day, it looked like some spangly thing a six-year-old girl might wear.
“I met Don Johnson last night,” Erica said.
“Really?” Jared seemed genuinely impressed. “That’s cool! How did you manage that?”
“Ethan’s company financed a movie that Don Johnson is in.”
Debbie peeked in the door, holding a vacuum cleaner. “Would you like some fruit juice, Jared, honey?” she asked.
“No, thanks, Mother dear,” he said. Debbie hesitated at the door a minute and then pushed the vacuum down the hall.
“My Dad is a DJ, but he wouldn’t recognize anybody worth listening to if he bumped into them on the way to the bathroom,” Jared said.
Erica nodded in silent assent.
“Did you know that Bloody Tampax is from the Island?” he asked.
“No way,” Erica said. She had never heard of Bloody Tampax.
“Yes way,” Jared said. “They went to high school in Hicksville.”
His fingers were long and pale; suited for the violin, Debbie had decided, when he was in fourth grade. Erica recalled dutifully attending several elementary school recitals. She didn’t think he took lessons anymore.
“Say, Jared,” Erica said, mindful of the need to finesse the topic at hand. “How did you wind up in the hospital getting your stomach pumped?”
Jared sucked on his bottom lip and scratched his chin. Erica could see the imprint of his raggedy fingernails, faint red scratches, on the dimple directly below his lip. “We were at a party at this guy Matthew’s house. We were drinking vodka from a bottle. Then I walked home. Or so I believed.”
“Dumb, dumb, dumb,” Erica thought. “You could have killed yourself.” But unsure how to phrase this sentiment in an acceptable manner and wanting, unlike his parents, to be a good listener, she maintained empathetic eye contact and said nothing.
Fables of the Reconstruction came to an end and Jared changed the record to some intensely jarring music, all screeching guitars and synthesizers and barely comprehensible lyrics reeking with self-conscious angst. He flashed the record cover at her: a metal trashcan overflowing with used feminine hygiene products.
They listened silently for a few minutes.
“I thought Dad was going to kill me,” Jared finally said. “They didn’t say anything about psycho hospitals to you, did they? The parental unit?” There was a frightened pitch to Jared’s voice that Erica typically associated with bogeymen in the closet and monsters underneath the bed.
“No,” Erica said. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t really spoken to them.” She supposed she should. She checked her watch. “Listen, I’m sorry to leave so fast, but I have to get back home to your little cousins. Take care of yourself, okay?”
“Don’t worry about me, Aunt Rikki.” Jared turned his face back to the television set.
Erica padded down the thickly covered hallway, ridged with vacuum cleaner marks. In the living room, Debbie was pulling knickknacks out of the bookcase and vacuuming behind them.
“Jared seems all right,” said Erica. “We had a nice conversation.”
“I don’t like this teenage thing.” Debbie pulled a glass bowl of marbles off a lower shelf, sucking up the faint dust circle under the bowl. “Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems. That’s what Ron always says. Are you sure I can’t interest you in a cup of tea?”
Erica looked toward the bay window. The slatted blinds, down as usual, blocked the light like jail bars. “I promised Ethan I’d get home in time for his tennis game,” Erica said, but Debbie was smiling tightly and expectantly at her, already pouring hot water over orange pekoe tea bags and setting out a tray of pastries.
Erica noticed another bruise on her shoulder, a soft blue quarter moon edging out from under her bra strap.
“Debbie, what are those bruises all about?” she asked.
“Bruises?” Debbie blinked, all innocence.
“Yeah, bruises,” Erica said. “You know, the purple blotches on your leg and your arm and your shoulder. They’re pretty obvious.”
“Oh, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice them and worry about me,” Debbie said. “You know, with Jared and all. They’re nothing really. My internist is doing tests. Apparently I bruise easily. Especially when I’m under stress.” She sighed.
“You don’t have leukemia or anything, do you?” Erica asked.
“Of course not,” Debbie said, wiping her arm wearily against her face. “I never should have let Jared go out with Lyndsey Schrabner. It wasn’t really a date. The kids all hang out in groups these days, instead of pairing off like we did, but she’s the one who invited him, and not to criticize Lisa or anything, but there’s no structure in that household. Those kids eat whatever and whenever they want, and did you know that Lisa and Les gave Lyndsey and Jason their own personal TVs? With cable?”
“Yeah. I caught Dylan and Jason watching the Playboy Channel once.”
Lisa Schrabner was Debbie’s age. They’d met in sixth grade, at baton-twirling lessons, and back then Erica had leaned against Debbie’s closed door, straining to decipher their giggly secrets. But it was Erica who had ended up as Lisa’s friend.
Debbie pushed the tray of Entenmann’s in Erica’s direction. While Debbie never failed to serve fattening treats, she rarely partook herself. “What did you do? Weren’t you shocked?”
“No. I thought it was funny. It’s not like they understood anything that was going on.” Erica ate the white half of a black-and-white cookie and then nibbled at the black parts. Somehow pastry fragments that were merely nibbled at, never forthrightly chewed, contained no calories.
Debbie sighed. “Well, I sure don’t understand what’s going on with Jared now.”
Erica checked her watch—five to four. “I absolutely gotta go,” she said, standing up. “I’ll see you Tuesday to go shopping for Lauren, okay? Tuesday is your day off, right?”
“Yes. But one more thing,” Debbie said, lifting up the placements and sweeping crumbs off the table. “On your way out, can you stop and say hello to Ron? He doesn’t think you and Ethan like him very much. He’s out the back.”
: : :
Ron was applying grub control to the newly replanted lawn around Jared’s old play gym, the one where he used to swing round and round on the metal bars, the bristles of his hair flashing in the sunlight. Ron’s shoulders hunched from years of ducking his six-foot-five frame through doorways. His body was tight and twitchy, like a tensed wire. He was wearing a face mask, aiming a plastic spray tube with his skinny red-knuckled fingers at a square of sod. A white film oozed across the mud, and Erica smelled something metallic and acrid. Everything Ron held looked like a weapon. “Way to go, Ron,” Erica thought. Defol
iate those weeds. Agent Orange for the home. Destroy your lawn in order to save it.
She didn’t feel like calling out to him over the din of the sprayer. The club would cancel Ethan’s tennis reservation if she didn’t get home pronto, and Ethan would have a cow. Plus, it was true—, she’d always disliked Ron. Ethan was just more public about it. Give Ron credit—he perceived their mutual distaste. He didn’t look up as she scurried around the side of their house and down the street.
CHAPTER SIX
Erica slouched on the front stoop with Sophia, waiting for Debbie to pick her up. The Volvo dealer had finally determined that Vince’s central computer was to blame for his malfunctions, but the replacement was still en route, apparently on a slow boat from Sweden. Everyone’s lawns were slimy from the winter, and only the most tentative of green buds mounded up from the tree branches. A garbage truck huffed by, leaving a stink and a scatter of Styrofoam plates.
Debbie pulled into the driveway in her new gray Oldsmobile sedan and honked. The vehicle reminded Erica of a hippopotamus. “And that was Englebert Humperdinck,” announced a familiar voice as Erica hooked in Sophia’s car seat. Ron’s tone was melodious and resonant, intimating a totally different personality over the air than in person.
Debbie wore an aqua pantsuit with padded shoulders and matching pumps. Her nails were perfectly rounded, a pale pink. “We’re going to Macy’s,” she said, merging onto the Meadowbrook. “It’s got a broad selection, and it’s close by. I need to squeeze so much into my day off, and I have to take Jared to the gastroenterologist at two.”
“How’s Jared doing?” Erica asked.
“Don’t ask,” Debbie sighed.
: : :
At Macy’s Erica suggested an underwater watch, complete with timer, in crystal blue. Debbie shook her head. “It’s a scuba diving watch,” she said. “Lauren doesn’t dive, as far as I know.”
“I thought she did,” Erica said. “Plus there’s a barracuda engraved on it. Isn’t the theme of her bat mitzvah the underwater kingdom?”
Debbie decided a watch wasn’t a smart idea, period, so they drifted over to jewelry, where they surveyed practically their entire inventory of necklaces and bracelets, asking the saleslady to remove them one by one from the locked glass case. Debbie dangled each one from her pearly fingers, held them up to the light, wrinkled her nose, and dismissed them. They were all too expensive, too cheap, too showy, too dull, just not right somehow. Finally, Debbie cradled a bright-blue semiprecious stone dolphin on a gold chain in her palm and granted her grudging approval.
Then she suggested lunch. If there was anything Debbie loved it was a frilly ladies’ lunch in a department store. They settled into wicker chairs and looked at each other over the lace tablecloth.
“What do you want to eat?” Erica asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Debbie said. “I’m not very hungry.”
“You were the one who suggested lunch,” Erica reminded her. She couldn’t relate. She was always hungry. The waitress appeared, pouring them lemon-scented water. They both chose the special: chicken walnut salad and cream of broccoli soup.
By the time the soup arrived, Sophia was whimpering and nuzzling at Erica’s blouse. She unbuttoned it partway, and Sophia snuggled into her contentedly as Erica alternated soothing spoonfuls of soup with gulps of black coffee.
“How are the boys?” asked Debbie, averting her eyes from Erica’s chest.
“Oh, crazy as usual,” Erica said. “Dylan is entering a Lego robotics contest. He scored in the ninety-ninth percentile on his math aptitude tests.”
“How nice,” Debbie replied absently, blowing her nose in her napkin. “Sophia looks like Mom, don’t you think? Those wide-set blue eyes.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Erica said. “Now that you mention it.”
The waitress removed the soup bowls, replacing them with plates of chicken salad attractively arrayed on watercress.
“I can’t believe you went for another baby, after the twins.” Debbie blew her nose again.
“I wanted a girl,” Erica said, switching breasts.
“Yes, well you’re lucky. When all you have is one. . .” Debbie listlessly lifted a forkful of chicken to her lips, letting it dangle there for a moment, and a greasy walnut fell onto her leg. She dipped her snotty napkin into her lemon water, dabbling furiously at her pantsuit.
“One what?” Erica asked.
“One boy. One precious only boy. I tried to have more, you know, but then I had that ectopic pregnancy and nearly died, and the doctor said no way could we have another child.” Debbie’s face collapsed, tears streaking down her cheeks, bunching up her face powder into little mounds like mauve sand. Her eye shadow clotted into little polka dot pimples beneath her painstakingly plucked brows.
Erica proffered a baby wipe from her bag.
Debbie placed the wipe over her shut lids like a compress. “I’m sorry to make such a scene, Rikki,” she said. “I can’t eat. I haven’t slept. You have no idea of the stress I’m under with Jared.”
“Did he get drunk again?” Erica grabbed a burp cloth out of her diaper bag and slung it over her shoulder.
“He wouldn’t have the chance!” Compact case in hand, Debbie redid her makeup. “He’s grounded! It’s not just the drinking—it’s everything! He’s getting Cs and Ds, and he used to be on the honor roll. He quit violin, and he showed such promise. He quit the tennis team, and you know how important sports are to Ron. We got a progress report from school, and he’s been cutting French class. French is his last class of the day, at 2:10, and he never gets home until at least 4:30, so tell me, what’s he been doing all that time?” Debbie gasped and sniffled, and her newly applied makeup started running again. “I think he’s”—she hesitated, nearly swallowing her next words—“using drugs. He’s going to drop out of school at this rate. He’ll never go to college. He’ll wind up on the streets!”
Sophia burped loudly, spitting up a few curds of milk. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Erica asked. “I mean, like the tennis team. Jared never liked sports, as far as I can recall.”
Debbie sighed. “Don’t you remember? He made the semifinals last year at the club! Now look what’s happened. You have no idea how serious this is, Rikki.”
The waitress reappeared, presenting the check and removing Erica’s empty plate. Erica put down her credit card. “Let me treat you to lunch,” she said.
Debbie sipped listlessly at her cup of Earl Grey tea. “Thank you. I haven’t said anything, but this has been going on, you know, for a while. We’ve been to so many doctors. His allergist said he might be allergic to wheat, and that could be causing his stomachaches and maybe the fatigue and his lack of concentration in school. That’s why I’m taking him to the gastroenterologist today, for more tests. And his ear, nose, and throat specialist said that maybe his middle ear membrane was damaged from all those ear infections he had when he was little, and he hears words differently than most people do. I mean, he hears them as loud as normal but at a different pitch so he can’t interpret them correctly. It’s called dystympania.”
“There’s no such thing as a middle ear membrane,” said Erica, signing the check. “And wheat allergies aren’t nearly as common as they’re made out to be.”
“Oh, Rikki, stop pretending you’re a medical expert just because you went to nursing school ten years ago. These are some of the best doctors on the Island. And that’s not the worst of it.”
“Tell me the worst of it,” Erica said.
Debbie sucked in several deep heavy breaths. “At the Nassau Family Clinic, Dr. Rafferty diagnosed Jared with DDD.”
Erica stared at Debbie in perplexed astonishment. “What on earth is DDD?”
“Defiant disobedient disorder.”
“It sounds like something Ron might spray on the lawn.”
“Rikki! Why must y
ou make light of everything! It’s a real physical syndrome! Mental illnesses aren’t always in the head, like people used to think!”
“How do you treat DDD?” Erica signed the credit card slip and fastened Sophia back into her stroller.
“Well, he needs more tests,” Debbie said. “He needs therapy—we’ve already started that. And medication.”
They descended five floors in the elevator and exited at the parking lot. Debbie fumbled in her purse. “Where’s my car, do you remember, Rikki? Why can I never find my car when I’m running late?”
“Over there, by Bloomingdale’s.”
Debbie pulled out of the parking lot and onto the busy parkway. Ron’s closing selection, a Tom Jones ballad, droned through its final chorus.
“I still don’t get it,” Erica said. “Aren’t all teenagers defiant and disobedient?”
“Maybe you. I wasn’t. Ron wasn’t,” Debbie said.
“Oh, please. What about Randy Wasserman and those open cans of beer in his car?”
“He was the only one drinking it. Beer always made me sick.”
“And what about Ron? Didn’t he beat up some kid on his college basketball team? Isn’t that why he lost his scholarship and got drafted?”
“You weren’t supposed to know about that, “Debbie said, exiting onto Glenvere Road.
“You told me once. When Jared was in the hospital with pneumonia.”
“It was different with Ron.”
“How?”
“It just was. His buddy started that fight, and you know how frat boys can be. Listen, Rikki, I want to ask you a favor. I was wondering if maybe you could talk to Jared, spend a little time with him. I thought you might have more insight into his mindset, given the kind of teen you were.”
“The kind of teen I was? That sounds more like an insult than a compliment.”
“Well, you know. Everything.” Debbie slid to a stop at the four-way intersection by the entrance into West Meadow Knolls. “The way you were always stealing Mom and Dad’s liquor, for instance. I saw you sneak a bottle of Connemara whiskey—the one the Lipmans gave him at his fiftieth birthday party—and it upset me so much I told Mom.”
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