Sam laughed. “Not on your life.”
Bella began to walk backward down the middle of the deserted street. With each breath she could still smell the bonfire from Frankie Cole’s party. She waved to Sam. He looked so small as she moved farther away. It was hard not to run back down the street to him. She could feel the world that Mindy was talking about pressing in on all sides, and then the crazy crooked line that ran from her mother to Sam. They had known each other all their lives. They were in each other’s DNA. This place was all she had ever known. And she wondered how she was ever really and truly going to leave.
FIVE
When Dinosaurs Ruled the World
Sam—2003
Mrs. Spade died in the winter of their junior year of college and they all returned home for the funeral.
Mrs. Spade had been sick as long as Sam could remember, so her death shouldn’t have been that shocking, yet it hit him harder than he expected. He guessed that her illness, always unspecified, had tricked him into thinking you could be sick forever, almost as a way of life. When he considered that now, Sam realized what an idiot he was.
Bella had called from Vassar to tell Sam. He’d picked up the phone and heard his name and then nothing, just a rush of air across the wires followed by what sounded like a faraway howling. Bella and Sam had continued, despite distance and any real commitment, to find their way back to each other. She surprised him first at school, showing up at his door, and they had fallen back onto his twin mattress as if they were starving. It felt exotic, somehow, to be in a place where no one knew them as a couple. To hold hands as they shared crummy food off Sam’s meal ticket at the dining hall, to drink dollar pitchers at the Rat, to wake up next to each other and have sex without talking, as if they had the map of what they liked inked indelibly in their brains. By the time Sam’s roommate returned from his girlfriend’s place, the weekend ended, the buzz would wear off, and Sam would think they wouldn’t do it again. Until one of them showed up on the doorstep of the other’s room and it started up all over again. Sam thought this thing with Bella was casual, comfortable. They had never labeled what they were or talked about where it was going. He thought that was what they both wanted. Or maybe they were just too scared to bring it up. Sam liked things the way they were until something like this happened, and he had no idea how to act or what they meant to each other.
When she called, it had been the longest they had gone, since before Thanksgiving break. Sam hadn’t been home for Thanksgiving that year; instead he and Michael had visited their mother in Vermont, where she had incongruously found her passion making goat cheese and living with a writer twenty years her junior. At Christmas, Michael went back to the goat cheese farm and Sam went with his father to Boca Raton to be with his grandfather, since his grandmother had died in September and his father couldn’t convince his grandfather to come north. So Bella and Sam hadn’t been in touch, and he was surprised to find himself missing her.
The night before the funeral, the Spade house had been crowded with people Sam mostly recognized: plenty of his friends’ parents, pre- and post-divorce, a librarian who’d kicked him out of the stacks once for a whoopee cushion prank, Tina from the reception desk at the club, the lawn guy who hated Frankie and Sam for trying to start a rival business one summer, and their old mailman, Sy, who had carried a sack of dog treats in a bag around his belt. Running in and around all these people were the Spade grandchildren, six or seven blond kids who seemed identical in age. According to Sam’s father, there had been a steady stream of neighbors bearing bottles of liquor along with casseroles in aluminum tins, who automatically received an invitation to stay by Mr. Spade, for whom the prospect of being alone to mourn his wife appeared unappealing. The alone part he could remedy, at least, considering the odd collection of mourners in their home pre-funeral.
When Mr. Spade had offered Sam a martini he’d replied, “Oh, God, no!” and then couldn’t help feeling that his reaction had made Bella’s father more uncomfortable, as he had excused himself quickly and disappeared into the crowd, one small blond child attached to his pant leg.
Sam scanned the main rooms with no luck, then turned a corner after narrowly avoiding his eleventh-grade English teacher, who was leaning against the wall by the pantry whispering into the ear of his twelfth-grade trigonometry teacher. He took off down the long hallway that led to the back of the house and the bedrooms. The Spade grandchildren had left nothing untouched: most of the doors had been flung open and toys and books were scattered across the floor. A television blared from one of the bedrooms; the high-pitched singsong voices led Sam to believe it was most likely a cartoon. He peeked in as he passed and was surprised to see Bella’s oldest brother reclining against the pillows of his parents’ bed, drinking a beer. Their eyes met and Bella’s brother raised his beer in greeting and Sam did nothing, embarrassed to be caught looking.
When he finally found Bella she was sitting on the back deck outside her room, wrapped in an enormous fur that smelled like a combination of piss and mothballs. She was curled up inside the coat, her legs pressed to her chest, her arms around her knees. Her mouth and chin were buried in the massive collar and all that showed was the tip of her red nose and her eyes. Her eyes were rimmed pink and Sam was pretty sure there was frost on her eyelashes. It was easily the coldest day of the winter so far.
“Hey,” Sam said. “Mrs. Francussi is whispering in Mr. Holt’s ear outside your pantry.”
Bella tipped her chin up out of the coat to reveal a shockingly painted mouth outlined in a heavy scarlet lipstick. “They’re probably fucking.”
“Well, thanks, I could do without that visual.” Mrs. Francussi wore flesh-colored stockings that made her legs look like sausage casings while Mr. Holt favored cardigans in shades of rust. The amount of nudity they should share was nil. They should shower clothed, as far as Sam was concerned.
Bella moved over and Sam sat down next to her, grateful for her fur-cloaked body against his side, adding another layer of warmth. Even if he had to breathe out of his mouth. “What are you doing out here?”
The entire fur ball that was Bella shrugged.
“I’d be hiding too. Where did all these people come from?”
“My feelings exactly. Where the fuck were all these people when my mother was dying? She fucking died in her bed, alone. My father was in the city. At work. She was here all day. Alone. Dead. Alone and dead.”
Sam flashed on Bella’s brother reclining in his parents’ bed watching cartoons. Mrs. Spade had died in that bed? He didn’t know what to say.
“She had a heart attack.” Bella’s voice sounded weak, like she was running out of anger. “After everything she had been through, she had a lousy heart attack.”
“I am so sorry.” Sam put his arm around the coat, but he couldn’t even feel Bella inside of it. He tried to pull her closer but he just got hair in his mouth. “Do you want to go for a walk? Get out of here?”
Bella shook her head and stood up. She held out her hand and Sam took her fingers, tiny and cold, and she led him through the sliding glass doors and into her room. She pushed aside piles of clothing and books and photo albums and flung herself on her bed, facedown. Sam followed because he didn’t know what else to do. He tried to find any part of her that he could touch but he just ended up patting the top of her head. “What can I do for you, Bella? Tell me.”
There was a long silence and then Bella rolled over to look at him. “Nothing, Sam. I’m going to be fine.” The lipstick had smeared across her teeth. She looked the furthest from fine Sam had ever seen. “Oh, by the way, your mom sent some cheese.”
Sam nodded. Of course she had.
“And a really nice note.” Bella nibbled at her lip, leaving tiny exclamation points of red along her top teeth. “But she was good like that. She always wrote my mom notes. I think that cheered her up, you know? That she wasn’t forgotten?”
Sam had no idea his mother kept in touch with anyone from the neighborhood. He nodded ag
ain because all of a sudden there was a lump in his throat. Bella’s mother was dead, while his had left them to make goat cheese and fuck a guy who looked like his RA.
“I’ve been going through her things. I can’t even remember the last time she was well enough to wear this coat, but I love it and I am never taking it off.”
Sam held back the sigh that threatened to break loose. Parts of the coat looked like they had mange.
“So the service is tomorrow. At noon.”
“I know. My dad told me.”
“Good.” Bella looked like she was waiting for Sam to kiss her, but he couldn’t imagine touching that red mouth. He felt bad. He felt fucking awful. He felt like he wished he could run as far away from this as possible. What role was he supposed to play here? Doting boyfriend? Did her father and her brothers think he was that? Shit.
“What are you thinking?” Bella asked.
Sam shook his head.
“Come on, tell me.”
“That I don’t know what to do or how to act.”
“Thank you.” Bella nodded solemnly, her eyes huge in her face. “I get that.”
Sam fell back on her pillows and closed his eyes. He was suddenly so fucking tired he could have slept forever. Bella stirred next to him but he couldn’t gather the strength to move. It wasn’t until he felt her hand on his zipper that he realized what she was doing. He couldn’t even raise his arms to pull her on top, but when she peeled back his fly and reached into his boxers he immediately sprang against her palm. He felt the fur cuff, softer than it looked, as she dug deeper and freed his balls.
Bella climbed on top. The coat fell open as she lowered herself slowly down until they were connected. She stayed still for what seemed like forever. Sam’s dick throbbed inside of her until she began to rock back and forth. Sam bit the inside of his mouth to keep from coming too fast. He thought about her brother watching cartoons in his dead mother’s bed. He thought about the martini. He thought about what the fuck he was doing in Bella’s house fucking her while the cocktail party of death raged on all around them. He hoped one of those little kids didn’t yank open the door. Was the door even locked? Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Bella, Sam thought. You feel so fucking amazing. Fuck. So fucking amazing.
When Sam woke up the room was black and Bella was asleep on top of him, her head beneath his chin and the coat covering both of them. His dick was wedged where it had fallen out of her and as he rose to consciousness it did the same.
“Bella,” Sam whispered into her hair. “Bella?”
He could feel her hot breath against his neck. She mumbled into his collarbone something he couldn’t understand.
“Wake up, Bella.”
Bella placed her palms against Sam’s chest and raised herself up just enough to look at him with one eye. The lipstick was now all over her chin. “What time is it?”
“Dark.” Sam half struggled to see the clock on her bedside table but Bella moved at the same time, accidentally rubbing up against him. Sam took a chance and hooked a leg over hers and rolled her over onto her back. Bella looked up at him with a lazy half smile and stretched an arm above her head. Sam reached down between her legs. She arched her back slightly and closed her eyes.
“Please.”
He was inside her before she finished saying the word.
Sam left as Bella was running water for a bath. They had stayed in bed for a while, talking about nothing important, and she had seemed calmer. She had even laughed a little when she caught her reflection in the mirror above the sink as the small bathroom filled with steam. She insisted to Sam that he should go, that she was going to spend some time with her father and brothers. But even as he was leaving he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should be staying no matter what Bella had said.
Sam made his way over to Peter Chang’s basement. Peter was at MIT, having already developed and sold several video games that were providing him more than enough money without the degree, but Sam somehow always saw him in his mother’s basement, where the best of their teenage years would live on suspended in time.
Being at Peter’s was like one giant exhale. Almost everyone had come back for the funeral. Frankie Cole, Ruthie Newman, Stephen Winters, Johnny Ross, and Mindy Stevens were all there. The exceptions were Celia Newman, Ruthie’s little sister, on exchange in France, and Suzie Epstein, of course, whom no one had heard from since she left. Sam took the Sucrets container that Bella had dropped into his coat pocket as he was leaving and placed it on the trunk in front of the couch. “A gift,” he said.
Everyone looked at the tin but no one did anything to open it. Finally, Stephen Winters grabbed and opened it, revealing four neatly rolled joints. “Shit.”
Ruthie and Mindy looked at each other. Ruthie said, “That’s Mrs. Spade’s, right?”
“What do you think?” Sam asked.
“Don’t be an asshole, Sam.” Ruthie narrowed her eyes. “This is hard for all of us, not just you. Bella is like our sister.”
Sam wasn’t sure what she meant. Was he giving the impression that Mrs. Spade’s death was hard on him, or that tending to Bella was hard? Ever since Ruthie had declared women’s studies as her major, everything had become an argument. Sam was too tired to go there tonight.
Frankie stared intently at the tin before reaching for it and slipping out a joint. “I heard she had cancer, that the pot helped with chemo.”
“Nah,” offered Peter Chang. “MS or some shitty disease like that, I think.” He looked to Sam for confirmation.
Sam shrugged. “She had a heart attack, that’s all I know.”
“It doesn’t matter now, does it? Are you going to light that thing or what?” Stephen tossed a pack of matches at Frankie. Frankie, a philosophy major at Rutgers, looked at the joint and seemed to consider the possibilities. Sam thought the consensus in the room was obvious: they had smoked Mrs. Spade’s weed before, and it was some really good shit.
The room was silent as Frankie struck a match and raised the joint toward the ceiling. The paper sizzled as he took that first long drag. They passed the joint around the room, not speaking. When it was done Sam stood up, pleasantly buzzed, and walked up out of the basement and into the empty street.
He walked back over to Bella’s house, stoned and feeling bad about leaving Bella all alone to take a bath. The windows were dark in front, but that didn’t mean everyone was asleep. He held up his hand and waved. Then he felt like a fool and dropped his arm down by his side and shuffled off down the road.
At home he found his father sitting at the kitchen table dunking Chips Ahoy! into a mug that said #1 Dad. His eating habits, never great, had deteriorated while Sam was at school. Soy sauce packets threatened to take over the entire kitchen table.
Sam sat down across from him. His father pushed the package of cookies in his direction. Sam took one and they chewed in unison. Sam scraped the chair over to the counter to get a glass for milk. When he got back to the table he ate three more soggy cookies and made a flower pattern out of sauce packets on the table.
“How’s she doing?” his father asked.
“Okay, I guess.”
His dad nodded, a cookie halfway to his mouth. “It would have to be hard to be a daughter and lose your mother.”
Sam squinted over at him. Did he think it was any easier to be a son and lose your mother? “I wouldn’t know.” He still couldn’t get the picture of Bella with smeared red lipstick all over her face out of his head. What was wrong with him? He had real feelings for Bella. He just didn’t know what to do with them.
His father closed his eyes briefly and then reopened them. “Do you want to go to the funeral together? Or are you going earlier?”
Sam looked at him, horrified at the thought of having to return to the Spade house before the funeral. He’d been planning to meet up with the boys and sit in the back of the church. This would be only the second funeral he had ever attended in his life, the first being his grandmother’s memorial service, where Michael
read an excerpt from Walden and afterward they went out for lunch. A week later UPS had delivered his grandmother’s ashes in a brown box.
Through cookie crumbs Sam mumbled, “I’ll go with you.”
His father nodded. “Everything okay? Did you talk to your professors and tell them you would be gone?”
Sam winced. He had just received a notice in his campus mailbox from his counselor saying that he was yet again treading the waters of academic probation. He doubted he and his professors would have anything positive to say to one another at this point. “I’m good, Dad.”
His father nodded. “You’d better get some sleep, Sammy. You look wiped out.”
Sam pushed back his chair and carried his glass to the sink. Before he left the room he looked back at his father. He was mid-dunk and he caught Sam looking. He raised a cookie in salute and Sam waved back, then shuffled off to his room, dropped onto his bed fully clothed, and fell into his second hard sleep of the night.
The blazer Sam had worn for his high school graduation was still hanging in his closet, a navy-and-gold-striped tie looped around the hanger. He went into Michael’s room and found an acceptable white shirt and pair of khakis and dressed for the funeral. The sleeves of the blazer were too short, but Michael’s long-sleeve shirt made up for it. Sam was probably just a little over six feet by now, closing in on Michael’s six-two. He was still waiting for the angles of his body to fill out. No matter how much food he consumed it didn’t seem to stick. He knew from seeing his father’s high school graduation photo in his grandfather’s bookcase that he looked exactly like him at that age.
Sam nicked his chin shaving, took two Advil, and borrowed a belt from his father, and he was ready. He needed a haircut, but there was nothing he could do about that now. His father looked solemn in a navy suit and overcoat, the same outfit he wore to work every single day.
They left so early they stopped off for coffee and doughnuts and ate them in the car with the heat running. The temp on the dashboard read eleven degrees. Before his dad slipped on the defroster the windows fogged around them, and Sam appreciated being hidden from view for those few minutes, even if it was only in the parking lot of the doughnut shack.
The Grown Ups Page 9