Swell

by Jill Eisenstadt

  Dan flips the pillow to cover his eyes lest light bullets shoot through the blinds. It’s not even sunny out. The cool of the unused side of the pillowcase is better than compassion…though fleeting. If an asteroid can almost obliterate a city without warning, then more space junk (and other plagues) await. Dan can see only two options. Allow anxiety to shred him or cultivate denial.

  Denial, then. The new pill, still partially lodged in Dan’s throat, is fuchsia and big as a nickel. He wills himself to believe in it as he has believed in all the previous remedies and remedy hawkers, as he believes in Dr. Mole. That is, fully, desperately, and even though Sue just informed him that the guy isn’t a doctor after all, just a pharmacist who gets off on pretending. Only then did Sue let on she was calling from the ER to report another narrowly avoided nightmare. Sage ate a poison cherry. “But she’s fine now, all is well. You just rest.” All this Sue said in the mildest possible murmur so as not to aggravate Dan’s head. Because she loves him. There can be no other reason. Above Dan’s left eye, the ice pick twists, yet he’s determined to again reach for the phone and call the florist.

  * * *

  Once Sage is released from the hospital, Sue lets loose on her. “Never, never, never, never do that again!” Sue’s wedged sideways in the front seat, the kid across her knees, her feet in the parking-lot gravel. All four car doors are open for air. But no breeze can help the humidity and stench. Like being trapped inside a plastic bag of puke, Tim thinks. He would like to add NO PUKING to the list of rules taped to his dashboard. No puking unless your name is Bridget or Ryan. The idea of Peg’s kids being his makes the Glassman family so much less glamorous. Or maybe it’s the reality of mopping up the contents of Sage’s gut with an insufficient supply of paper towels and bottled water. Despite being thrown in a shower and thoroughly worked up, the girl refuses to admit to eating a single bite of cherry. Only Ed ate it.

  “Don’t give me that!” Sue yells. “I saw Tim wipe it off your mouth! Tell her, Tim. Tell her you wiped it!”

  Like Sue, Tim would like to unload on someone. He’ll never get the half-digested fruit, bacon, and milk out of the car carpeting. Like Sage, he’s afraid he’s in big, big trouble. He’s the one who originally suggested spraying the tree. So he figures it’s best to remain silent. Sue resumes her harangue—“Never, never”—until poor Sage is way too afraid ever to admit to it.

  “Ed ate it, not me,” Sage lies, to save herself, “Ed ate the cherry and he died.”

  * * *

  Returning home, they find Sy still outside, though slumped in Rose’s wheelchair, facing the house. Lingering guests hunker down in the new but already distressed lawn furniture, also turned backward, away from the view. It’s the wind. It menaces hairdos and flower heads, ripping at the red flags down on the sand. They’ve finally been hoisted to warn no one from the frothing current. The only remaining beach patron is Blacky, with the boot now in his jaws. He pulls a bit, rests a bit, pulls. Is he sick? Did he eat something bad again? In the hour or so Tim’s been gone, the mutt has hardly moved his treasure, as if the shoe were quadruple its normal weight. Then again, Blacky’s an old dog. Tim forgets.

  “Bring her here,” Sy orders, spotting Sage in Tim’s arms. He pats his lap for his granddaughter to come sit. “She’s all right, then? She looks pale. Is she pale or just naked? Get the kid some damn clothes! Why all the squirming?”

  The old man makes a show of not looking at Sue. Unsure what to do, Tim brings the girl over, reporting to Sy that Sage is fine, great. “Just a little smelly.” Tim nods at the others. Evidently, all the out-of-towners have fled. All present are local and are eating cake.

  “If we don’t eat cake,” Mole says, slicing more, “we’ll be letting the terrorists win.”

  But Sage doesn’t want cake. She wants Ed. (“Where’s Ed? I don’t see him!”) And Tim doesn’t want cake. He wants the girl to go sit on Grandpa. (Each time he tries to lower Sage onto Sy’s lap, she resists, scratching, kicking, calling, “Ed!”) Sue says she wants cake, but after accepting the plate of devil’s food, she just lets the fork hover, not eating any.

  “C’mon, Sagey, come sit with me?” Sy keeps on, an edge creeping into his singsong.

  Sage whips her curly head back and forth defiantly.

  “My own granddaughter will no longer sit on my lap. How about that?”

  “She’s preoccupied,” Tim says, only partly to help the old man save face. Underneath his arm, he can feel Sage’s small heart hammering. If Ed isn’t here, in his usual spot, then what? Did her lie come true? “Ed ate the cherry,” she said, “and he died.” Sticks and stones, Tim’s ass! Sage has inadvertently killed her own imaginary friend.

  He lets her wriggle down his legs, watches as she walks, trancelike, past the cherry tree and out the door onto the beach. Blacky’s tail blurs at the sight of her but quickly slows as he comprehends his friend’s distress. Tim wonders if the dog can actually notice Ed’s absence. Whatever it is, depression or exhaustion, the mutt whines and lies down on top of the boot.

  Meanwhile, Sy, in parallel despair, wails, “I lost my own grandkid. After losing my Estelle and Abe, my little brother. Just last year was Abie’s stroke. I lost my daughter-in-law—”

  “I’m right here,” Sue says. “Take it easy.” But Sy’s pity party has just begun. “Both my kitties, I lost last winter. Sophie hit by a car, Strumpet—”

  “You still have your hair,” Mole, the baldie, cheerleads.

  Sage has doubled back onto the lawn. Tim watches Sue’s forehead wrinkle as she takes in the girl’s sluggish march along the hedge toward the house.

  “I lost my job.” Sy’s chin sinks to his chest. “I lost my business.”

  Bob chokes on his cake. His wife, Fran, puts aside her knitting to whack his back, loosen his corduroy bow tie. “Our livelihood depends on Glassman Locks & Keys,” Fran reminds Sy. “Clarify ‘lost my business,’ now.”

  But Sy chants on, from the top. “I lost Estelle, my one love! I lost my little brother, Abie—”

  “You have food. You have a beach house,” Mole tries.

  “Only if Rose declines to buy it back,” Sue reveals. She’s decided that the old woman will have that option. “It’s only right.”

  “I’m losing my house!” Sy howls afresh. Slumped over the burn-hole-pocked arm of the wheelchair, he raises his frightened eyes to Sue. For the first time since the Glassmans moved in, Tim can’t wait to get the hell away from them.

  “Why?” Sy’s demanding Sue tell him. “Why? Why do I lose everything? What’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re a bully,” Sue says simply. Flickers of compassion compete with her stern expression. And win. She puts down her plate and bends over to hug him. In turn, Sy lifts the hem of Sue’s dress to his face. Wiping a nose full of snot off on it, he tells her to go fuck herself.

  Tim rushes over with a napkin. Saint Tim. If Sue tries to thank him again, she might crack. So she jokes, offering a piece of her dress in which he too can blow his half a nose. They slap backs. Then Sue goes off to find Sage. The girl is by the side of the house, naked, in tears, holding, of all things, June’s health-class egg. A large crack runs across the shell, right through the pink number 3. But it’s intact. Seeing Sue, Sage takes off into the house as if spooked.

  Here she goes again. It seems to Sue she’s been chasing people all weekend. She follows Sage past the dining-room table (on which sits a piece of ceiling and a stuffed animal, a lamb), down the hall (where the obscure wallpaper forms finally reveal themselves—ah! Cherries!), and up the stairs, where Rose lies on Sage’s pirate sheets, her pocketbook gaping, the checkered dress all bunched up on one side.

  Sage shrieks, flees.

  “The egg,” Sue calls after her. “Be careful!” She can hear Dan in the next room, shushing Sage’s sobs. But they won’t end until Sage confesses. What she told wasn’t right. Really, she ate the cherry. Not Ed. But she lied that he did, so he died. She didn’t know words had that power or she
’d have said it right. Really, she ate the cherry. Not Ed.

  “Shhh, shhh,” Dan says. “It’s okay…there’ll be another.”

  But Sue knows better. Kicking through a jumble of boxes and shoes to reach Rose in bed, she’s sorry but sure. Ed’s the last. Dan and, on some level, even Sage must also know this. Nearly five, starting real school in the fall, Sage would have had to off Ed soon enough. Yes, others had preceded him, notably an imaginary older brother, Brother, and Pipi and Lou-Lou, twin polka dots born in Sage’s sock drawer. But there would be no more.

  “Why the long face, Red?” Rose says, opening her eyes to find Sue sitting on her bed. The comforter is strewn with the contents of the white pocketbook, which Sue begins to refill. Wallet, tissues. “You wish we went away with the Indians, don’tcha, Red?” Sewing kit, parking ticket. “When the Indians came to Rockaway with the feathers and drums?”

  “Native Americans?” Sue asks. “Weren’t they here first?”

  “Not those Indians. The ones from Arizona. St. Camillus auditorium, you remember? When they came to entertain?”

  “Sorry, but—I’m Sue.” Bifocals, coffee candies…knife? “Do you need help?” Rose is clutching her stomach and wheezing.

  “At the end some of ’em sang Irish songs and a whole gang of us walked them back to O’Reilly’s. The young one said he sang for me. He thought I was Irish.”

  It’s not that hard to picture, the Queens stop on the Tribal Exploitation Tour. Young, fiery-haired Rose dazzled by the “primitive” show. More difficult is the idea of her own mass of bright hair shrunken to a see-through tuft like the one now in front of her.

  Sue shifts her weight—the baby’s pressing—and a canister rolls out from under the sheet. Rose’s breath starts to rattle as it thuds on the floor. Label says GARY PAUL VINCENT—“Oh my God. Rose! Is this—Rose!”

  The old lady’s mouth is open. Her teeth, as white as bone. But she can’t talk back anymore.

  Sue will see to Gary, Rose knows. Sue’s no dummy. Anyway, it was too hard to explain. Such a bellyache Rose hasn’t felt since the old Sunday-dinner days from eating that massive meal too fast while jumping up to clear and serve—the antipasti and the pasta, two meats…Except Rose hadn’t eaten anything when the little squeezes started, rising from her stomach, into her spine, picking up speed to her shoulder, throat, jaw. At the top of her head, she simply went with them, through the space made by a thick tendril of ivy forcing open the once-sealed window. Out here, an indifferent wind whips around her. No sand in it. No sound. Far below, on the shore, are her grandkids, waving hello. They’ve come! Only Rose’s arm won’t work to wave back. That’s how light it is, too light even to cross herself, so light she has no choice but to let the white pocketbook go.

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to my wise and generous readers: Debra Eisenstadt, Ajay Sahgal, Darcey Steinke, Zeke Farrow, Connie Rosenblum, Beth Greenberg, Kevin Boyle, Michael Redpath; inspiring people: Carmela LaGamba, Jessica Morris, Ed Pilkington, Beth Harpaz, Robert Knightly, Leslie Daley, Kate Fincke, Marian Fontana, all The Eisenstadts; and those who literally made this book happen: Cynthia Cannell, Terry Adams, Lee Boudreaux, Reagan Arthur, Tracy Roe, Michael Noon, and the indispensable National Endowment for the Arts.

  Most of all, I am grateful to Mike, Jane, Lena, and Coco Drinkard.

  Sections of the novel have appeared in other versions in Queens Noir (Akashic Books) and BOMB.

  Some of Rose’s recollections were inspired by The Wave 100th Anniversary Collector’s Edition, in particular “Memories of Rockaway Long Ago,” by Mary Hennessy Trotta.

  Sage and June’s discussion of God here was inspired by an anecdote told by Stephanie Wilder-Taylor on the “For Crying Out Loud” podcast.

  Related recommended nonfiction reading:

  A Widow’s Walk by Marian Fontana

  Braving the Waves by Kevin Boyle

  About the Author

  Jill Eisenstadt is the author of the novels From Rockaway and Kiss Out. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Elle, Boston Review, New York magazine, and BOMB, among other places. She lives in Brooklyn.

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.

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