Tell Me How This Ends Well

by David Samuel Levinson

  “No, no, you misunderstand me,” Pandora said. “Not Roz, just Julian. We love having Roz around. It’s your dad, Thistle.” She pulled her phone out of her robe, touched the screen, then handed it to Edith. “Press play.”

  It was a video, but Edith saw at once that this was a video of a completely different nature from Ephraim’s. For the first few seconds, there was nothing but black, as one of the twins spoke to Mo on the phone, but then suddenly the picture started: The camera caught what had to be Dexter’s face—he was missing two front teeth—then it panned across the front yard, settling on Jacob’s rental car for a second before spinning around to settle on Edith’s dad, who was fiddling with something in the back of the minivan. Dexter held the camera on his paw-paw, who had no idea he was being recorded, apparently, though it wouldn’t have mattered because Dexter had no idea what he was witnessing. And to be honest neither did Edith, other than that her dad was doing what he normally did—futzing around reorganizing the back of the minivan, shifting his fishing gear, then grabbing a green canister, which he shifted as well, but not before fiddling with something on its side. The video went on for another moment before going black again.

  “Okay, so Dexter’s a budding director,” she deadpanned. “What was I supposed to see?”

  “Oh, Thistle, for such a smart, accomplished woman, you can be such a complete dumbass,” she said. “Do I seriously have to spell it out for you?” Yet before Edith could tell her that yes, she had to spell it out, Pandora’s masseur tapped her on the shoulder. “Just think. I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” she said impatiently, then disappeared into the cabana and shut the door.

  Edith lingered in the hall, caught between two impulses: to storm into cabana 2 and demand to see the video again or to storm into cabana 2 and pop Pandora in the mouth for having the gall to insinuate what Edith believed she was insinuating—that Dexter had caught her dad tampering with her mom’s spare oxygen tank. Absurd. Beyond absurd. Delusional, she thought, reaching absently for her phone. She considered calling Mo and telling him about the video, but if Pandora hadn’t told him about it yet she might just be making matters worse. Whether or not Edith believed the implications of the video, her brothers would take one look at it and that would be that. There would be no talking them out of their plan to kill their father, even though the video was inconclusive.

  She wanted to talk to someone, anyone, but had no one to call. She couldn’t call Ephraim, who had sent her a dozen more texts, which she ignored without reading. She had several missed calls from him as well, which only further fueled her anger and discomfort. She thought about calling Jacob, but he didn’t have a working cellphone. She scrolled through her list of contacts, past Sheik Cohen, whose number she’d kept, though she knew she shouldn’t have, pausing only when she got to E Pluribus Unum, as she’d fondly once referred to Elias—out of many, one. For many years he had been that to her, until her feelings for Sheik had rekindled. If she could speak to anyone about her sister-in-law, it’d be Elias, who still knew her the best of anyone, although they hadn’t spoken in ages. She was about to call him when she got another notification from TBS1946, who’d finally played his turn: YOUR, for a whopping fifty-four points, which brought his score alarmingly closer to hers.

  Her blond-haired, blue-eyed, muscle-bound masseur stepped out of the cabana, said hello, then instructed her to go inside and lie down on the table. Based on his accent, Edith put him from Eastern Europe.

  “Where are you from?” she asked, slipping out of her robe and hanging it on a hook, while he potchkied around with the musical selection, his back to her.

  “I am Tomasz, from Poland,” he said with a thick accent. “From Kraków.”

  He finally settled on a relaxing avian motif—owls, starlings, doves, and songbirds—while Edith lay faceup on the table, her towel draped over her pussy and breasts, thinking of her unruly, dark red bush, in which Ephraim liked to bury his face, and so she’d kept it longer than usual. Now she rued not having trimmed it, though she couldn’t have foreseen this, that she’d find herself naked on a massage table. “I hear Kraków is quite lovely,” she said as Tomasz grabbed the oil, squirted some into his palms, and rubbed them together to warm them up.

  “I give you deep Swedish massage,” he told her. “You tell me if too much pain, then I be more gentle.”

  They kibitzed for a few minutes while he kneaded her freckled shoulders with his thick, meaty fingers. She shut her eyes and gave in to the pleasure of the pain, sighing through it, transporting out of herself, and floating away. She looked down upon this Edith, with her long, lumpy body and odd-sized breasts, her large, aquiline nose, a gift from her dad, her bulbous chin and thin-lipped mouth, gifts from her mom. She thought about her brothers, envying Mo his long black eyelashes and thick head of floppy black hair, and Jacob his full lips and small, Gentile nose, his shockingly blue eyes, like a malamute’s, or as he liked to say when they were kids, like a Malamud’s, meaning Bernard Malamud. She was plainer than both of them and for this reason she’d nurtured her intelligence, sensing that this would be her way through the world. Which was okay, considering that she actually did have quite a high IQ, definitely higher than her brothers’, though this wasn’t all that surprising, since women often had higher IQs than men anyway. It was her dad who rated them, while they all sat around the dinner table, discussing school and grades, and he’d inevitably turned to Edith and said, “You’re lucky you take after me,” gazing upon the rest of them—Jacob, Mo, and her mom—with contempt. She was the apple of his eye, and she’d used it to her advantage as often as she could, getting out of chores and being treated that much better because her daddy valued her intellect over the others’. Yet he never said she was pretty, never told her she was graceful in her prom dresses and high heels, never took photos of her the way he did her brothers. It left a hole inside of her that no amount of cock could fill, though she’d spent years trying.

  An hour later, the massage was over, and she was putting her robe back on.

  “Have you been in L.A. long?” she asked Tomasz as he shut off the music.

  “I live here few months. I like. I used live in Berlin,” he said. “But weather bad and too much Turks. I don’t like. They lazy. They make mess wherever they go. Every time you hear problem, it’s the Turks.”

  “My brother lives in Berlin,” she said, his comment rankling her. “He says he’s met some wonderful Turkish people,” although Jacob had never said anything of the kind.

  “I like lots sun and beach and girls,” Tomasz said, wiping his hands on a towel. “If no trashy Hebrews, would be paradise.”

  And there it was, just like that, her second confrontation of the day. How many others had she not recognized, odd, uncomfortable, strained moments between her and a stranger, which remained unaccounted for, though they lingered like a bad taste in her mouth? A sideways glance, a date declined, a party invitation that “went missing in the mail.” All of these everyday occurrences might not have been so everyday when added to all of the other offenses she’d experienced.

  She glanced at Tomasz, wanting to tell him off, but figured instead she’d write a letter to the owner of the Stardust Hotel itself. Fuck you and the tip you rode in on, she thought, clearing out of the cabana quickly without saying good-bye. In the locker room, Edith changed back into her clothes, then texted Pandora that she’d meet them in the bar. It was close to two-thirty and though ordinarily she wouldn’t have ordered a cocktail, she felt she owed it to herself. She downed her first lychee margarita in less than five minutes, then ordered another. While she waited for it, she pulled out her phone, still refusing to engage with Ephraim, who’d sent her a few more frantic texts. Instead, she opened up the Scrabble app and perused her tiles, finally using the Y in YOUR to spell TYRANNY, for sixty-eight points, and reclaiming a sizable lead. She was already quite buzzed from the tequila. She wanted to pace herself and dipped her hand into the bowl of caramelized almonds, then asked for a men
u. A quick nosh before Pandora and her mom appeared and it was time to get back into the car and make the dreaded return trip to Calabasas, where anything might have happened among the three Jacobson men.

  Halfway through her second round, her mom and Pandora showed up. “Ma! Pandora! I ordered some munchies. A fig pâté and some fried calamari and lots of bread! Take a load off. Here, try this,” and she shoved her drink into her mom’s face.

  “I don’t think she should,” Pandora cautioned. “It might interfere with your medication, Roz.”

  “Oh, screw the medication,” Edith said. “It’s a lychee margarita, Ma. Ly-chee!”

  “I don’t think one little sip will kill me,” her mom said, taking the glass and swallowing a much larger sip than Edith was expecting.

  “Atta girl, Ma,” she said. “Finish it if you want.”

  “We need to get going if you want to make Claremont on time,” Pandora said, her face in her phone.

  “Screw Pomona. Screw my talk. And screw ethics,” Edith said. “I don’t have any idea why I even bother half the time. I mean, you’ve seen the shit storm waiting for us out there,” and she pointed to the windows and the world beyond. “Well, haven’t you? I mean, we all grow up thinking the world’s like this, but it’s really like that, and then we’re suddenly adults and the horrors that befall us—it’s all just so undignified. We tell ourselves life is random, because that’s the only way we can get through it. We say ‘life’s unfair,’ but it’s worse than that. Why didn’t you ever tell me it was going to be worse, Ma? You could’ve at least warned me!”

  “Thistle, did something happen, because you’re sounding like—”

  “Like what, Ma? Like Daddy? Is that who I sound like?” she asked, her voice shrill, her tongue sopped with tequila and her mind with panic, for she had absolutely no idea how she was going to make it another two days in L.A. She stared at her mom, who swam in and out of her vision, and nearly burst into tears for the way she’d treated her. It was all too much.

  “No, I was going to say you’re sounding like you’re premenstrual,” her mom said.

  “Oh, that’s just great. Reduce me to my uterus, Ma,” she said. “It’s nice to know that feminism rides again with Roz Jacobson.” I might not sound like Daddy, she thought, but sometimes you do, Ma. Sometimes you do. “So do you have any wisdom to impart to your unhappily unmarried, unhappily moppetless, unhappily drunk daughter on this Friday afternoon in Los Angeles?” She pronounced Los Angeles the same way the shuttle driver had that morning, and it made her feel tremendously, deliriously joyous and superior to every other person in the chichi hotel, except for those who pronounced it correctly anyway because the whole region and all the land in it rightfully belonged to them. She wished she were the kind of person who took stands and joined protests and attended marches and rallies, but instead she was the kind of person who stood up in front of a classroom and enjoined her students to take action, to get involved, to care about this or that cause, then she went home, opened a bottle of chardonnay, and watched Netflix until it was time to go to bed. This had been her life for years until lately, until Ephraim, although after the video she didn’t see much point in him anymore. “Shall I tell you about my life in Atlanta, Ma? Do you want to hear how your daughter got herself involved with one of her students and how that student didn’t like his grade and how your daughter’s now being brought up on sexual misconduct charges?” she asked just as the fig pâté and fried calamari arrived. “Daddy ought to get a big kick out of the details. Vengeance is best served with dipping sauce,” she said, stabbing one of the circular squids with a finger and dropping it into her mouth. “Damn, but these little critters are chewy,” putting on a thick Southern twang.

  “Thistle, why don’t we get this to go?” her mom said, wrapping an arm around Edith’s waist and leading her into the lobby.

  “Don’t forget to have them box up the baguette chips,” Edith called to Pandora. “Oh, Ma, I’m sorry. I must be such a disappointment to you. Ever since…” But she stopped herself.

  “Ever since what?” her mom asked, moving apace and keeping up with Edith.

  “Ever since your diagnosis,” she said. “I know we haven’t always gotten along and that’s mostly been my fault, I see that, and I’m not blaming you for the choices I’ve made these past few months, but I just can’t bear the idea of losing you.”

  “Shh, Thistle,” her mom said. “Your dad’s taking good care of me.”

  “You keep saying that, but is he? Is he taking good care of you?” she asked. This was the tequila talking, yet she couldn’t stop herself. She kept mentally replaying both the moment at the pool that morning and the video of her dad at the minivan, and the more she replayed them, the more sickeningly clear each one became, until she could no longer deny the truth. “What I mean is, wouldn’t you be happier if you moved out here and were closer to your grandsons? I’ve also heard that a drier climate can do wonders for the lungs.”

  “Your father and I have discussed moving out here many times, but all of our friends are in Dallas. California’s also prohibitively expensive,” her mom said. “We pay enough for water as it is. I think your dad would fall over dead if he ever saw just how much Pandora and Mo spend on water every month.” This was her dad talking, of course, her practical, pragmatic, defeatist dad. “It’s a nice thought, though, Thistle.” She climbed into the Expedition, which Pandora had just unlocked.

  Handing Edith her boxed-up goodies, Pandora said, “I just got an SOS from Mo. Julian is apparently on the rampage. Do you know anything about a missing money clip?”

  Edith knew nothing about a money clip, missing or otherwise, but she did know about rampaging men. The committee on sexual misconduct was made up mostly of men, her colleagues who’d known her for years and had awarded her tenure and were now coming after her. Emory University had a zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment of any kind, and although what Edith had done had been misconstrued completely, she was shocked and appalled to learn that her peers still considered her behavior “morally suspect.” All she’d done was befriend a troubled boy and console him in her office, with the door wide open. It’d been her mistake to hug him—that’s where she’d gone utterly wrong. Hug him a second too long, but it’d felt so good to care about someone else for a change, to hold this pasty-faced, gawky sophomore in her arms and let him sob about his parents’ imminent divorce. Some of her current and former students wrote letters of protest to the dean, calling the whole affair a witch hunt, causing Edith even more unease, as it brought up images of her own mom and the witch hunt she had conducted furtively throughout her childhood. She’d gotten so obsessed that she’d reached out to Arthur Miller, writing him a letter in which she beseeched him to come and help her. He never responded, which was just as well.

  In the backseat of the hot SUV, Edith gazed at her mom and laughed at the girl who’d written that letter and who’d been full of such alarmed, virulent fear. How silly she’d been to be afraid of the sick, withered woman in the front seat. Edith had to hand it to her dad for dividing allegiances, for manipulating her into believing such a demented, twisted myth. To call it what it truly was—a lie—meant that she’d also have to call her dad what he truly was, and she wasn’t ready for that just yet. She rummaged through the bag and brought up the calamari, passing it to the front seat after she herself had nibbled on it.

  “Anyone for fig pâté?” she asked.

  “But, darling, don’t be silly. You can’t eat figs,” her mom said.

  “People grow out of allergies, Ma,” she said. “I just thought…” But whatever Edith thought was quickly dispatched by the look on her mom’s face, a look that held a fleeting sadness in it and beyond this a tremble of worry.

  “Yes, that might be true,” her mom said, “but why take the chance, dear?”

  “What am I missing here?” Pandora chimed in. “I don’t care for figs. They make me bloat.”

  “I can’t eat them because the
last time I did, I ended up in the hospital…I nearly died.”

  “You nearly died?” Pandora asked, horrified, glancing at Edith in the rearview mirror. “Edith, don’t take this the wrong way, but just how much have you had to drink because it’s clearly messed with your judgment? I mean, I’ve heard of having a death wish and all that, but this is just ridiculous, even for you. Besides, we aren’t about to let you weasel out of the Seder that easily.” Pandora smiled at her, which only made Edith want to devour the pâté that much more, and not just the pâté but also every single fig within a ten-mile radius.

  She wanted out of this, Edith suddenly realized, and if it meant harming herself to do it, then so be it, for there was only so much she could take and she had about reached her limit. Her mom was dying, her dad was awful, her brothers were plotting his murder, and she was sitting in the back of this SUV, wondering how she’d gotten there, how she’d let her life get so completely away from her.

  “Darling, just give me the pâté. I have a bit of a sweet tooth. Anything to wash away that kale, which left a gritty taste in my mouth,” her mom said.

  Edith relented and handed the pâté to her, along with the baguette chips and a plastic knife. While Edith and Pandora shared the calamari, her mom monopolized the pâté, which was fine with Edith, who was just happy to see that she had an appetite, considering the medication often left her nauseated and without one. “Hey, Ma, pace yourself,” she said, but her mom took no notice and shoveled more and more of the thick, creamy slab into her mouth. “Since when did you develop a taste for figs? You never used to go near them.”

  “That is just not true, Thistle,” her mom said. Yet as far as Edith could remember, it was true, which only made her wonder why her mom was lying. “Maybe you’re thinking of Mo. My word, but there was one fussy eater! He wouldn’t go near a single fruit or vegetable. The fights we used to have!”