by Lara Reznik
He clicks a few buttons. “Hi, darlin’. Yes, I’ll pick up Josh… Tell Lilly, Daddy’s proud. And don’t forget to make the kennel reservation for Goldie. Love you, too.”
While I knew he had a family, this now feels like a reality show and I’m part of the wrecking crew. Wifey, Josh, Lilly, even poor Goldie the dog. This can’t be the first time he’s strayed.
He clicks off the cell and glances at his watch. “Before I forget, tell Darlene I’ll be there at nine.”
“Okay.”
“So where on Long Island—?”
His phone rings again. This time he picks up. “No kidding, send her in.” He smiles. “It’s our new board member.”
The door to his office slowly opens and the aroma of Chanel perfume infuses the air. A large-boned woman with boobs the size of small cantaloupes appears. She takes her sunglasses off unveiling long fake lashes and a face stretched tight with Botox. She looks vaguely familiar but ignores my presence.
Bob E. extends his hand out to her. “You look terrific, Ivy. Long time no see.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Pretender and the Bitch
Austin, Texas, 2012
Ivy flutters her glued-on eyelashes as she chatters on about how positively thrilled she is to be selected as an LBJ board member. She never glances my way, not for a second, until I clear my throat.
Bob E. takes the opportunity to introduce us. “Laila, this is Ivy Foreman. She’s our newest LBJ board member.”
My God. Poison Ivy all grown up to become a congressman’s wife. I have to control myself to keep from laughing out loud.
Ivy turns to me. Her eyes pop open like carved holes in a jack-o-lantern, and she blushes through three coats of foundation.
We all stand in silence for an endless few seconds as she launches mental ice-daggers.
I want to say, yes, it really is me, Laila Levin, standing here in 2012 in the office of LBJ. Not the normal me, dressed in an appropriate work outfit from Dillard’s, but me, wearing sloppy jeans and an LBJ work shirt with a messy ponytail. Instead, I extend my hand. “How ya doing, Ivy? Long time.”
A vein protrudes from her forehead as she shakes my hand. “I’m sorry. Have we met before?”
No way she doesn’t remember me unless she had a lobotomy. But I figure if she wants to play this game that it might be in my best political interest to go along. “Guess not.”
Bob E. pats her hand and grins at me. “Ivy went to Yale. That’s where she met the Congressman.”
I try hard to suppress a torpedo of giggles. This woman was way too busy on her back in Bridgeport to ever have made it to New Haven.
Ivy scowls as though she’s aware of my thoughts. “Nice to meet you. Hope to get better acquainted in the future.”
I catch Bob E. peeking at her cleavage as it strains for release from her sheer white blouse.
One thing is certain. Ivy’s enormous boobs have remained intact.
LATER THAT EVENING as I enter my house in Lake Travis through the garage, Willow races down the steps barking. She usually greets me with licks and a wagging tail, not loud barks. I follow her up the curved stairway and hear someone rustling around. “Hello… Ed, is that you?” His truck wasn’t in the driveway.
Still barking, the dog herds me up the stairs through the living room to the kitchen. “Honey?”
“Perdón, es sólo mí.”
My spine stiffens at the sight of Juanita by the table.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I say.
Her brown eyes have a shoe-button look. “I, er, came back to see you earlier and needed to use the restroom. Eduardo was leaving for an emergency at a rental property and said it was okay.”
My herniated disk reacts by sending shooting pains down my leg. “I don’t believe you.”
She presses her hands together. “He was headed to Frontier Trail. Something about a tenant moving out.”
Maybe it’s true. She couldn’t possibly know such specifics about our rentals if Ed hadn’t shared the information. I’m furious at him for allowing this to happen. “Get out of my house. And while you’re at it, get out of my life.”
“If everything’s so innocent, why can’t you be straight with me?” she asks.
“What authority do you have anyway?”
“Based on my conversations with Chris, I’ve contacted a friend of mine in the FBI.”
I swallow. “Joey disappeared decades ago. Seems to me there’s a statute of limitations on missing persons.”
She grabs my wrist. “We’ll see about that.”
I yank my arm free. What did Chris tell her?
Her voice softens. “I can help you. Just tell me what you know.”
Sure she’ll help me. And my eighty-nine year old mother is giving birth to triplets.
Our eyes lock in open warfare. Then she glances out the study window at the negative edge pool with Lake Travis behind it. “Spectacular view. Siempre quería una casa como este.”
“What the ef does that mean?” Not that I really care what she says.
She smiles, “I’ve always wanted a place like this.”
“Really. Maybe someday you’ll strike it rich as a P.I.”
“Once you’re in prison, I’m sure Eduardo will get lonely.”
Without thinking twice, I slap her bonita face. Hard. Something I’ve never done to anyone in my whole life. And you know, it feels really good. Goddamn fantastic.
Juanita looks startled and places her fingers on the chili-pepper red imprint of my hand on her cheek.
Just then the rumbling sound of the garage door opening below us rattles the room. Seconds later, Ed arrives upstairs. He glances at Juanita, then at me. “What’s going on?”
I stammer, “Did you give her permission to be alone in our home?”
He narrows his eyes at Juanita.
“I, ah, had to use the restroom after you left. I didn’t think it was a big deal,” she says.
“You were getting into your Mustang when I was heading out in my truck.”
She touches his arm. “Look, I’m sorry. The door was unlocked.”
We rarely lock our doors in Lakeway. I make a mental note this habit needs to change. I turn to Eduardo. “She has no right snooping around our home.”
“It’s best you leave, Juanita,” he says.
“Comprendo. Adiós, Eduardo.”
I shout, “You understand, my ass.”
She dashes from the room, down the steps, and out the front door. Within seconds the Mustang motor purrs, and the sound of screeching tires fills the cul-de-sac.
I beckon Ed’s eyes. “She wants to move in with you after I go to prison.”
Ed turns away. He doesn’t give a damn what Juanita said. “I’ve had enough of your bullshit, Laila. I want the truth, and I want it right now.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Family Business
Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1970
Chris remained in the lumpy attic bed with an endless headache and severe nausea for the better part of the week. His pupils were dilated, and he alternated between dripping in sweat and shivering with chills.
I’d make trips to the cafeteria and sneak out food for him; snack-size boxes of Cornflakes and Sugar Pops, peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, chicken, mashed potatoes, and cherry Jello. He’d pick at the food, eating very little.
I tracked down his professors and told them Chris had pneumonia. They provided me with numerous assignments, but Chris barely looked at them. One day he threw up yellow-green slime all over the blankets. “You don’t have to stay here and witness this,” he muttered.
I stripped the bed, helped him down the stairs to the bathroom, and held ice chips to his chapped lips while he sat in the claw foot tub.
He splashed me with bath water and smiled. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Just call me Florence Nightingale.”
“You’d look hot in a white uniform.”
&nb
sp; I smiled. “Want to play doctor?”
He grabbed my hand. “Give me a few days. I can’t wait to fuck you again. It’s just I feel so—”
“I was kidding. We’ve got a lifetime to make love.” Shit. What did I just say? “I don’t mean we’re like married or anything.”
He caressed my face. “One never knows the future. Nobody’s ever done anything like this for me.”
“Not even your mother?”
His eyes welled up. “My mom worked two jobs after the asshole disappeared. We had to hang tough when we got sick.”
“The asshole?”
“That’s what my brother and I called my father. When I was ten, he buzzed on out to the racetrack one day and didn’t return.”
“You never saw him again?”
He shook his head. “About a year later, I woke up one night and heard rustling downstairs. Mom was working a late shift at The Pancake House and I hid under the covers, too afraid to go downstairs to see who was there. The next morning all his shit had disappeared from the closet along with two hundred dollars my mother kept stashed in the cookie jar for the rent.”
My heart expanded to new levels of love and compassion for Chris. I’d never known anyone from a family like that. In the oasis of my own childhood, everyone lived in split-levels and ranch-style houses, with loving, if not overbearing, Jewish or Italian mothers and fathers.
I lugged all Chris’s bedding two blocks through the Puerto Rican neighborhood to the Main Street Laundromat, a moldy basement that smelled of dirty socks and Pine Sol. Two bikers stood around sorting their grease-stained Wranglers, dirty underwear, grey socks and T-shirts. Every other word out of their mouths to each other was “motherfucka,” but they were polite as priests to me.
When I returned to the apartment, I remade the bed with crisp sheets, swept out all the cigarette butts, and left a plastic trashcan beside the bed. Doc came by each day to check out both Chris and Ivy.
She remained in a pink flannel nightgown and teetered to the kitchen when she got hungry. I offered her cafeteria food, but she wrinkled her nose. “That shit’s full of chemicals and preservatives.” She taught me how to make brown rice and steamed vegetables using Italian olive oil and Kikkoman’s soy sauce, barking instructions like a drill sergeant. She’d rarely say thank you, but offered to do my chart when she felt better. I didn’t hold my breath.
While Ivy appeared stronger each day, Chris remained pale and lethargic, and his headaches continued. We only had made love the one time as he continued to feel too sick for a second round. When I’d arrive with his food, he’d smile and say, “Come here, sweet cheeks.” Then he’d kiss me, tell me I was his angel, and how he couldn’t wait to ef my brains out soon.
After a week, I asked Doc if we should take him to the hospital.
He patted my hand. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. I know more about the effects of hallucinogenics than all the schmucks staffing those hospitals put together.”
“But he doesn’t seem to be getting better.”
“He did way too much for his skinny ass. But he’ll be fine in a few more days. His body just needs to rest. Ivy, on the other hand, will probably never be able to have children.”
“Oh, my God! That’s terrible.”
“She don’t seem all that upset. The bleeding has stopped and she’s no longer having cramps. She’ll be okay once Ben gets back from Berkeley,” he said.
“Berkeley?” So that’s where Ben was. Fantasies of him still filled my thoughts.
“Yep. They took off the day after we all got shit-faced on the Windowpane.”
“They?”
“Him and some guy from the U.”
I began sleeping in the attic on a regular basis. The sex finally got better. I felt such compassion for Chris’s hard life. He really appreciated how well I took care of him. He told me I was his girl.
One morning I awoke as a single ray of light streamed through a crack in the attic wall. I lay there watching Chris sleep, his long blonde hair spread-out across the pillow. Such a beautiful man. He was also a great listener, a quality that had attracted me to him that first night we met. Had I finally found my soul mate?
Life would be perfect if I could just forget about the night with Ben. I caressed Chris’s face and his eyes opened.
“What’s up, sweetheart?”
I smiled. “Nothing, I just feel happy.”
“Come closer.” He wrapped his arms around me. “You don’t know how fucking far out you make me feel.” His early morning hardness pressed against me as proof. The winds rattled the window as we made love once again.
I cooked us a large breakfast of French toast, scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese. Chris heated up hot cocoa in a pot. We spent the rest of the cold New England day reading, doing homework, and listening to Chris’s extensive album collection.
That night, a biting wind howled outside and whipped through the windows of the drafty house. Ivy joined Chris and me on the couch to watch an episode of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In. The show had always been a particular favorite of my family and we would all huddle around the TV every Monday night.
“C’mon Dick, let’s go to the party,” Dan Rowan said and then the cast, including Goldie Hawn, began dancing before a Mod party backdrop.
Although Ivy smiled, even chuckled, at a few of the jokes, she suddenly stood and looked at Chris. “This show is for morons. Why waste your time?”
He shrugged. How about a movie? Easy Rider is playing in Westport.”
“I saw the premiere in NYC. Really cool movie.” I said.
Ivy curled her lip. “Of course. Guyland Girl naturally had the money to go to Manhattan for the premiere.”
I tried to explain to her that she had it all wrong. My father was a fireman and we weren’t rich at all. But it didn’t really matter what I said or did, Ivy had me pegged as a rich little girl from Long Island.
Footsteps on the stairs followed by the clunk of the deadbolt turning interrupted my response. The door opened and a tall dude in a baseball cap with a clean-shaven face entered the room. He looked vaguely familiar. But when he pulled off the baseball cap and his long black hair ran down his back, it left no doubt who stood before us.
Ivy bolted from the couch. “Ben!” She wrapped her body tightly around him pressing her enormous breasts on his chest.
Pangs of jealousy consumed me, but I reminded myself I belonged to Chris.
Ben wrangled free and slapped Chris’s hands a ‘high five.’ “How you feeling, bro? I heard you’ve been fucked up.”
Chris’s brushed my forearm. “I’m much better now, thanks to my angel.”
Ben smiled at me. His intense brown eyes radiated electric currents.
I felt like butter melting on hot popcorn. Should I hug him? No, better not.
Ben nodded at Chris. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a fine old lady, man.”
Chris put his arm around my shoulders. “You stay away now, you hear?”
If only he knew the half of it.
Ben sat down next to me on the couch and pulled out a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps from his backpack.
Ivy retrieved four shot glasses from the kitchen and then strategically wedged her body between us.
Ben filled the glasses with the clear liquid. “Got some bad news, guys.”
Chris downed his shot. “Jesus. What’s up now?”
“Remember that guy from U.B. who went with me to Berkley? Well, he didn’t show up in Hartford like planned.”
Chris’s face turned revolutionary red. “No way.”
“We didn’t sit together on the plane home for obvious reasons, and when I deplaned in Hartford, no dude. Then when I got to baggage claim, no suitcase on the carrousel. You figure it out.”
Ivy tossed her shot down and slammed the glass on the coffee table. “Maybe the pigs got him.”
“Or maybe he got greedy,” Ben said.
Chris sucked in his cheeks. “Either way we’re fucked. W
hat are we going to do?”
Ben refilled everyone’s shot glass but mine. I was still babying the first one. “I’ve already spoken to Angel and he’s cool.”
“No way,” Ivy said. “That’s not the Angel I know.”
Chris gulped down the second shot. “Me either. How the hell we gonna pay him if we have no grass to sell?”
“Angel needs a favor.”
Ivy gasped. “I’m not screwing anybody this time. Couldn’t if I wanted to.”
My mouth fell open. Did I hear her right?
Ben placed his arm around Ivy’s shoulder. “C’mon. We didn’t plan that thing with Paulie. But the goodwill you brought the family paid off very well. We all are eternally grateful.”
Ivy crossed her arms. “Ugh. That Paulie guy was such a pig.”
Ben lit a cigarette. “Angel wants someone to make a pickup in New Mexico.”
Ivy moved closer to him. “New Mexico? Where is that?”
“You’ve heard of Route 66. Jack Kerouac talked about it in On the Road. Angel relocated the business to a remote area in the mountains in the northern part of the state.”
“Makes sense with all the heat in California,” Chris said.
Ben continued. “He offered us a deal. We can make up what we owe him for the lost suitcase, put change in our pockets, and build back goodwill with the organization. I don’t see we have a choice.”
“I’m with you, man.” Chris said.
Ben bit a cuticle on his thumb. “So… which one of you wants to go?”
Chris shook his head. “I’m still having flashbacks.”
“Flashbacks, my ass,” Ben said. “You don’t want to leave your new hot mama.” He smiled at me, then pointed at Ivy.
“No way. I’m still pissing blood.”
He winked at her. “Does that mean I don’t get any nookie tonight?”
I looked away from them out the bay window. Snowflakes had just begun to coat the street. It made me sick to imagine Ben and Ivy together.
A WEEK PASSED with no sign of the missing U.B. student or the suitcase of marijuana. Most nights I crashed at the family house only returning to the dorm for clothing reinforcements. I left no personal items at the house. Not even a toothbrush.