City of Boys

by Beth Nugent

  She snaps the radio off and goes to wait at the sink. When the car doors slam, she turns on the water and begins re-rinsing the dry dishes from breakfast and lunch, but she is done before they come in, so she rinses them all again, and turns when they finally enter.

  —Oh boy, Marybeth says to Florence. —Are you going to be surprised. Her hair is streaked yellow from the sun. Louis follows her in, holding two small lobsters aloft.

  —Look, he says. —Lobsters.

  The lobsters wave their pinned claws sluggishly through the air at each side of Louis’s head. Marybeth watches them without expression.

  —They were in a box, she says to Florence, —when we bought them. They all stare blankly at the lobsters until Marybeth says brightly, —Don’t you just love lobster?

  Florence has had lobster here in Florida only once, shortly after their arrival; she and Louis went to a restaurant where they had to wait in line almost forty minutes for a table, and while they waited they were told to pick their own lobster from one of several that crept darkly around the bottom of a grimy tank. Florence said that any one would be fine, but Louis crouched in front of the tank and watched each carefully before choosing his. Florence never saw any of them actually removed from the tank, and she wondered if the lobster Louis was served was actually the lobster he had chosen. As they ate, she tried not to think of the ones they had pointed at being lifted from the tank and dropped into boiling water.

  —I don’t know, she says. —I read somewhere that lobsters scream when you cook them.

  Louis looks from one lobster to the other, and slowly lowers his hands. —No, he says. —It’s painless. They wouldn’t do it that way if it wasn’t.

  —That’s right, Florence, Marybeth says. —I think that’s right. The shock of the boiling water kills them instantly. Instantaneously.

  The lobsters dangle listlessly from Louis’s hands, hardly bothering to move at all. Florence wonders if they can breathe, so long out of the water.

  —Well, Marybeth says, —let’s get that water boiling. She begins to clatter through the cabinets, looking for a pot big enough to cook both lobsters, while Louis stands behind her, holding the lobsters at his side.

  Florence waits in the bathroom while they cook the lobsters; she is sure she’s right about the scream, though she knows she would be more persuasive if she could remember where she read it, or some of the exact details. She stands at the sink and tries to recall. In the mirror, her hair looks dry and twiggy, and her face seems somehow waterblown, as if it has been left out in the rain. She turns on the taps in both the shower and the sink, to cover any sound the lobsters might make, and watches as steam rises against the mirror, slowly covering her face, from the bottom up.

  When she comes back to the kitchen, the lobsters are cooked; their shells are bright red and the little wooden pegs in their claws are dark, soaked through with water.

  —See? Marybeth says. —No scream. I really don’t think they feel it at all. It happens so fast.

  The lobster tastes odd to Florence, fishy, but in a rotted way, and she believes it tastes the same to Louis because he eats cautiously, examining it closely, not looking at Florence as he dips each bite into the little bowl of butter in the middle of the table. Only Marybeth seems to enjoy the lobster, and when they are done, Louis wraps the shells in newspaper and folds it all carefully into the garbage can, but the odor lingers. Florence can smell it on her hands and in her hair.

  —Well, Marybeth says, looking around expectantly, —now what?

  Soon it will grow dark; the sprinklers will come on, Mrs. Walker will wander out to feed the birds, Louis will find a game on television, and Florence will sit on the couch behind him, reading a magazine or perhaps writing her mother.

  —There’s a game on, Louis says. —The Colts.

  —Oh, Marybeth says. —The Colts.

  She stares out the window and taps her nails against the table. They look freshly painted, unchipped, and Florence wonders when she had a chance to paint her nails, hitchhiking down from New York.

  —I know, Marybeth says. —Let’s play cards.

  Louis looks at the television. —Cards? he echoes unenthusiastically.

  —Sure, she says. —I always carry a deck of cards. It helps pass the time. You know what I mean, she says, nodding at Florence.

  —You two play, Florence says. —I have to write some letters.

  A look of mild disappointment crosses Louis’s face, like a shadow moving over a wide field, leaving behind as it passes only the same regular landscape, unaffected by the changing weather above.

  * * *

  Florence listens to them play cards as she writes her mother. Dear Mother, she has down so far. Louis is fine. We are both fine. The weather is beautiful, bright and sunny. Tonight we had fresh lobster. She tries to think of some way to mention Marybeth: a friend of Louis’s, she considers, or, simply, a houseguest. She imagines her mother reading the letter, and putting it down on a table somewhere, half finished, then forgetting where she left it as she tries to tell Florence’s father what it said: Oh, something about a house–guest, she would say, some sort of friend of Louis’s.

  Florence finishes the letter without mentioning Marybeth, then writes two more, almost exactly like it, one to her aunt, the other to a woman she worked with briefly. She wonders what they will all think her life is like when they read the letters–if they will imagine her at the beach, diving in and out of brilliant water, tan and lively, as she herself once imagined it would be.

  When she is done with the letters, she looks carefully through the newspaper for any articles that might interest her mother; she is searching especially for any stories about alligators, with pictures of them resting innocently on neat suburban lawns. She takes her time with the paper, reading every editorial, every letter, every comic strip, but even so, when she finally rises to go to bed, Louis and Marybeth are still at their game of cards, their heads bent over the table; the light above them picks out the shiny blond streaks in Marybeth’s hair.

  Florence lies awake until Louis comes to bed; she stays still while he settles down onto his elbow beside her and she can hear a slight wheeze as he breathes; it occurs to her that it is, after all, possible that he does have some trouble breathing here, something more than the discomfort everyone has with the hot, damp air. She can tell by his stillness that he wants to say something to her, and he reaches his hand out, his fingers coming to rest in the hollow at the base of her neck.

  —I just wondered if you were awake, he says.

  She pulls her neck away from his hand. —I was sleeping, she says, and turns her face to the wall. The bathroom door opens and closes, but nothing follows, no flush, no running water; she is sure that Marybeth is listening to them, leaning her head against the mirror and listening as she smiles and admires the bright pink gleam of her fingernails.

  By the time Florence gets up in the morning, Louis has already risen and showered; he sits at the table, reading the paper as Marybeth shakes coffee from the can into the coffeepot.

  —Florence, she says. —How did you sleep? Louis looks up at her, and when she says fine, he looks back to the paper. —Me, too, Marybeth says. —This is the best sleep I’ve had since I left New York. She smiles, and waves the coffee can, scattering coffee across the counter. —The air is so clean, she says. —I feel like I can breathe again.

  Florence turns on the water in the sink, to run the sulphur off. Mrs. Walker is already in her chair, rocking gently into the gravel. She holds her hands up in front of her, her palms to the sun, and stares at them, then drops them and looks down at the ground.

  —You know, Marybeth says, —you waste a lot of water like that. Water is not, she says, turning to Louis, —a renewable resource.

  —You have to, Florence says, but she turns the water off and watches it drain from the sink.

  —Look, Louis says. —The Mets lost.

  Marybeth joins him at the table, and together they read through
the box scores. Florence turns the water back on and lets it run over her hands until they feel numb. When she shuts the water off, she can’t feel them; they are like empty spaces at the end of her arms. Behind her, Marybeth offers Louis another cup of coffee.

  —Okay, Marybeth says. —Let’s get moving. She walks to the sink, holding her cup out in front of her, balanced flat on the palm of her hand.

  —Florence, she says, —you really should come with us. The sunshine would do you good. She drops her cup in the sink and turns. —You can think about it while we get ready.

  Florence sits at the table, listening to the sounds Marybeth makes in the bathroom: the water running, the slap of lotion against her delicate skin. Louis comes in dressed for the beach, in his green shoes and terry-cloth jacket. A pair of sunglasses hangs around his neck, suspended from a bright new blue cord, which he runs his fingers up and down self-consciously. Marybeth comes back into the room smiling.

  —Are you sure you don’t want to come? she asks, and Louis puts his hand on the doorknob. —It will be fun.

  Florence stands in the middle of the room, looking around her. —Well, she says, —if you really want me.

  Louis takes his hand from the doorknob and carefully arranges his sunglasses in the exact center of his chest.

  The beach is noisy and crowded, and they stand at the edge of the parking lot, looking out over the sand. A baby totters by in front of them, and behind it a young woman follows. —Janette, she calls as the baby lurches toward the road. —Janette, you wait, but she seems uninterested in catching up with the baby, lounging slowly after it even as she calls its name.

  —Oh, Marybeth says, —there’s a perfect spot.

  They follow her out across the sand until she stops abruptly and drops her knapsack. —Is this perfect? she says. She unbuttons her shirt and watches as Florence takes off her blouse.

  —Boy, Marybeth says. —You must have the whitest skin in Florida. Look, and she pulls the strap of her bathing suit away from her shoulder to show a thin pale strip of skin. —Even where I’m not tanned, she says, —I’m darker than you. You’d better be careful. You could get a bad burn.

  She nods and stares out at the water. —You need to tan gradually. Otherwise you’ll burn and peel and that’s bad for your skin. It will make you old before your time. She nods seriously, and Florence can tell she likes the sound of the words. —Yep, she says, —old before your time. You’ll look like that old woman in that rocking chair.

  Louis places his hands flat against the sand and moves them in small circles, widening outward; then he lifts his hands and looks down at the designs he’s made, smiling, pleased with what he’s done.

  It makes Florence wonder a moment, at the touch of his hand, the whisper of his breath on her neck in the morning. She stands.

  —I think I’ll get a drink, she says, and leaves them in the sand, Louis still looking down at his circles. She is conscious of Marybeth watching her walk away, and she tries to move gracefully, but her heels sink into the sand, and she feels like an animal lumbering up a hill.

  The concession stand sits on a concrete slab under a flat roof; there are several picnic tables, full of people with bright red unhappy faces; they look dazed, and they eat and drink mechanically. Just at the edge of the concrete, sea gulls flap and pace, giving out coarse, starving shrieks, but signs everywhere forbid the feeding of them, and the few that venture onto the patio are ignored or kicked aside.

  Florence buys a box of popcorn and carries it across the sand to a stunted palm that offers a few feet of shade; she crouches at its base and experimentally throws out a few pieces of popcorn. Almost immediately a sea gull dives into the sand and pecks it up; another follows, then another, and in only a few moments she is backed against the rough trunk of the tree, surrounded by a chaos of flapping wings. Gulls peck roughly at the sand, and at each other, every now and then sending up a harsh chorus of cries.

  Florence realizes that there are far too many gulls for the small amount of popcorn in the box, and a faint wind of fear rises in her throat. She tosses handfuls out away from her, into the heap of birds, and as they peck and quarrel, she empties the box and walks quickly away. She stops to drop the empty box into a garbage can, and looks behind her; some of the gulls on the edge of the circle have flown off, but the rest have stayed, in a little bunch that’s moved to cover the ground where she was standing. She is surprised to realize her heart is pounding, and as she walks back over the sand, she tries to think of an amusing way to describe the gulls to Marybeth and Louis, but when she arrives, they are standing, waiting for her.

  —We’ve been waiting for you, Marybeth says. —We didn’t want to go in without telling you.

  —You don’t mind? Louis says. —Being left alone?

  They walk to the water side by side–Louis plodding carefully, Marybeth gliding lightly over the sand–and stop at the water’s edge.

  Louis enters first, walking in up to his knees, then looks back at Marybeth, who splashes in and falls over sideways next to him. Florence watches them swim out until they are nothing more than tiny heads, round dark things carried over the surface of the waves.

  She lies back on her towel and tries to pick out Louis’s voice in the rush of sound, and for a sudden shocking moment she can’t remember what his voice is like, if it is deep, or high and reedy. She sits up to look for him. Far out on the water are two little figures, but waves climb and fall stiffly in front of them just before she can make out their features. She closes her eyes and imagines Louis and Marybeth underwater, their faces meeting in a kiss. When she looks out again over the water, she can see no one who looks like Louis. She concentrates on each drifting head until something–the length of the hair, the shape of a jaw, an unfamiliar gesture–reveals it to be someone else, and she gazes out at the sea until all she can see is light; she is sure not one of the heads belongs to Louis. Up and down the beach, people walk or sit or lie, but none of them is Louis, and when Florence looks closely at the waves, she is certain she sees a shadow, something large and dark moving to the surface, gliding back under. She has a sudden image of Louis’s head caught in the jaws of a shark, and she looks around for the lifeguard, who is smiling down at three women who stand around his chair; he laughs as he looks from one to the other, his nose gleaming bright white. Florence wills him to look out at the swimmers; it is possible that Louis and Marybeth have drowned while he has been talking to the women; it is possible that a shark is moving at this moment, unnoticed, just beneath the surface of the water. Florence cannot imagine moving the women aside to talk to the guard, or his face as he looks down at her, and she tries to picture Louis swimming confidently up and down the coast, but all she can see is his fragile head pressed against the floor of the ocean, his skin the color of sand, sand in his eyes, and sand stopping up the back of his throat. As people move in and out of the water, light flashes against their wet skin, so that they look hardly human, glittering in the bright air. The sun blinds her eyes, and she closes them, lying back against the bumpy sand.

  She is aware of something strange and stiff about her skin as she lets herself drift toward sleep. Somewhere, she thinks, a shark is gazing hopefully up through blue water at a green sun; somewhere an alligator lifts its stony head and heaves toward the legs of a child; everywhere there are animals lying in earth and sand and water, dreaming of closing their jaws on something human.

  When Florence opens her eyes, Louis and Marybeth are standing above her, two black shadows against the sun. She cannot see their faces, or make out any features at all, but they speak to her as though nothing has happened, and she realizes she has been asleep.

  —The water’s great, Louis says. He pats his stomach.

  —We didn’t see any sharks. Or even any fish.

  —I saw plenty of fish, Marybeth says. —Did you see that skate? Jesus. She sits down beside Florence and holds her hands a foot apart. —That sucker was huge. Florence puts her hand up to block the sun.
>
  —I thought you had drowned, she says. —I couldn’t see you anywhere.

  —Why would we have drowned? Louis asks.

  —You thought we had drowned and you were taking a nap? Marybeth says. She laughs. —Counting up your pennies?

  —I couldn’t see you at all, Florence says. —Anywhere on the beach.

  —Well, we were there, Louis says. —Swimming.

  As Florence sits up, she feels a rubbery tug at her face; it is her own skin, she realizes, and when she looks down at herself, her arms and legs look like parts of someone else’s body.

  —Oh my, Marybeth says, —look at that.

  She lays her hand flat across Florence’s thigh, and Florence stares down at it. Marybeth’s fingers are long and narrow, her nails perfectly shaped, and when she lifts her hand, there it is, a long white outline on Florence’s red skin.

  —You’re going to pay for that, Marybeth says. —Big time. She shakes her head. —That skin’s going to come off in sheets if you don’t put something on it. Maybe even if you do.

  Louis nods. —You’d better get out of the sun, he says. —That’s going to be a bad burn. Do you want me to walk you home?

  Tiny spots float in front of his face, and even though Florence knows it’s an effect of the sun, it is distracting nonetheless. He rubs sand from his mouth, and she tries to imagine the feel of his sandy face against hers. She closes her eyes, but all she can feel is heat rising in her bones, firing her skin into a fine powder that will be swept across the wide stretch of white sand.

  —Florence? Louis says.

  —No, she says, —I’ll just go by myself.

  As she stands, she feels nothing, just the stiff mechanical workings of her bones and muscles. She knows this will hurt later, but for now she feels nothing, not the sand beneath her feet, nor the hot pavement, nor the sun beating down on her as she walks home, half in a dream.