“How old was he?”
“My age. He still is. He went for a younger woman, fifteen.”
“I’m fifteen,” Giordana said fearlessly, noting that at least theoretically nothing was stopping her from achieving a boyfriend. “Is it awful when you see them together?”
“It’s not that big a school. They’re hard to avoid.”
“No one since then?”
“Nope.”
She tried to picture Janelle leaning up to nuzzle Uncle Peter, his hands going for her breasts. Suddenly he was the evil one and she was the innocent. “No one?”
“Don’t be weird.”
That was proof enough that there was nothing going on. For all of her mother’s praise, Giordana did have good intuition about people.
By lunchtime, she had told Janelle about Dad’s drinking, the fights with neighbors that came with it, and how it had forced them to move twice in the last year. She told her about the two different accounts of him leaving his job, about their packing up yesterday afternoon and going without a good-bye. She also told her what she didn’t think she could ever tell Thea or Emily or Dee: that they were broke. As a family they had been struggling, but now they were like the desperate cousins in Jane Austen, without the yearly allowance. Whatever her mother could make was all they would have. She would definitely have to go back to six shifts a week.
“Sounds like leaving was the right way for her to go,” Janelle said. It felt like a slap, her new friend taking her mother’s side. And on something so big, something that Giordana herself wasn’t even sure of. This was probably why her mother never told her the plan in the first place.
They biked beyond the neighborhood and Janelle showed her a row of shops, followed by a big supermarket with an even bigger parking lot and a McDonald’s. There were “Help Wanted” signs in the windows of both. How would a job there compare to scooping ice cream in the middle of a city?
When Janelle was ahead of her by one full street, Giordana tried a little test. She and the bike disappeared. As if to tell her how foolish this was, a driver came around a curve behind her and she realized it would be safer, as her father used to command, to stay where she could be seen. In plain view again, she wondered if there was a way this could make her rich. That would solve everything.
They wound their way back to Aunt Natalie’s street. Giordana felt sorry for Janelle, stuck here with only the neighbor’s niece as a friend.
“Thanks for the guided tour. You didn’t have to.”
“Peter and Natalie have always been good to me. We could do another ride tomorrow.”
“Where will we go?”
“Same places, I guess.”
Ruth wasn’t home yet and Ben was out, so Giordana spent the afternoon sitting on the veranda reading. Even though it wasn’t that cold, she wrapped herself in a crocheted quilt because it made her feel like an old dowager. An old dowager reading The Love Machine, which she’d found in the hall. This super-charming guy, hunky and brainy, was plowing his way through a lot of women who were disposable, at least to him. Giordana didn’t understand what they wanted from a man who was such a slut. It didn’t sound like a good plan to her. A lot of the novels with covers like this one featured guys who behaved like pigs till they found feelings for the right woman. But what about all those other women that got dumped along the way? Who did they end up with? Dad.
Giordana saw her friendship with Janelle blossoming into an apprenticeship. Janelle’s willingness to instruct, Giordana’s eagerness to learn. She wanted to be Janelle’s special case, a virgin outreach program. Giordana’s power would make them equal and keep Janelle interested. If Janelle organized it, Giordana would even consider robbing a bank.
Natalie brought the boys home from camp and Giordana volunteered to watch them for a few hours. The truth was the boys didn’t need her much, but Giordana wanted to sound helpful. Sasha stayed upstairs, but Alek was eager to take her around the neighborhood.
“Once we leave the house, we’re free, but there are a variety of dangers everywhere.”
It was like going through the streets with Janelle, but on a different plane of existence. When he wasn’t singing some made-up marching song, he kept a steady dialogue going, spinning out a story that turned all the houses into the faces of giants and turned the ground they were walking on into their barely buried bodies. Giordana led him through the first few shortcuts that Janelle had shown her. Alek wasn’t the least bit impressed and took off through a maze of new ones. Keeping up with him was expected. She didn’t remember being like this when she was little. The only one in her house who was allowed to live in his own world was Dad. He always got to be the kid.
“To get around all of them we must be snakes!”
With urgency and slinky arms, Alek led her along the perimeter of a dozen backyards. What if she showed off her power to him? If she held him, could she make him disappear too? They could get past the giants together. No, it was fun enough to watch him make it all up. They stomped on giant fingers, they kicked at giant eyeballs, they pinched giant noses.
Eventually, Alek circled them back home and charged through the front door.
Still breathless in the hall, he said, “Thanks for playing with me, but I need a little downtime now.” He ditched her at the foot of the stairs, thumping up to his room.
Natalie and Peter were getting dinner ready. The smell of butter and garlic and onions filled the house. Easy stuff—Thea’s mother did it all the time—but Giordana’s mother usually microwaved. Tonight, though, Ruth was racing around the kitchen, making a huge deal about setting the table with napkin swans and cut flowers from the backyard. Giordana wondered if she should be overdoing it too.
Ben hadn’t returned from the pool, but their mother insisted they start. Over dinner, she tried to tell everyone about her promising discussions with the human resources people at the nearby hospital. Alek interrupted and ultimately ran the show with his crazy questions.
“What if metal grew hair and Dad not only had to shave his face, but also shave the refrigerator every day?” Uncle Peter found an answer for each one—some of them followed Alek’s logic, some of them explained the real world. Giordana’s father had once slapped down one of her questions with “Curiosity killed the cat.” She was furious at him then and again now for silencing her—and with such a lame line. Peter was attentive. She was sorry she had thought he would bang the babysitter.
Afterward, it seemed to be assumed that Giordana would clean up. She went at it the way a scullery maid would, cleaning far beyond the meal’s mess. It was almost dark when Ben finally came back. He ate leftovers while she finished scrubbing handprints that probably belonged to Alek and Sasha from the refrigerator door.
Ben told her he had seen Janelle at the pool and they’d hung out. “You didn’t tell her about Dad, did you?” he asked. Talking to outsiders about family business would be a completely wrong thing to do.
“A little. Not much. Why?”
“I told her we were here for the summer, for vacation,” Ben said.
“What did she say to that?”
“She said she wished she could go to the city for a visit sometime.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her we should try to make it happen.”
Giordana didn’t understand anybody. “And she’ll stay with us at our penthouse overlooking the waterfront?”
“Shut up. I’m meeting up with her again tonight.”
Before she could even ask, Ben told her, “You can’t tag along.” He had the asinine grin of someone who thought he was the Love Machine but wasn’t.
Giordana was wounded, but content with the knowledge that he was not at all in Janelle’s league. He didn’t exercise and Janelle already knew he was bogus. When Ben left the room, Giordana cleaned up after him too, wiping his chair as if she were wiping his conversation from her mind.
As she hung the dish towel over the edge of the sink, she heard a familiar sound. She
went invisible and slyly swung open the door into the living room. It was what she thought: her mother, doubled over, crying on the sofa next to Natalie. The sobbing was muffled by her hands, as if she wanted to be heard but also wanted to keep down the noise. “The things he said to me were so mean, so needlessly mean.” Her words struggled out. “I never planned on failing like this,” she said.
“You couldn’t have known,” Natalie said.
“Don’t say that. I could have. You would have known. I didn’t listen. It was all there, but I never took the time to listen.”
Natalie pulled Ruth close, shielding her from harm. They stayed like this for a long time. Giordana hadn’t longed for a sister in a while, but she wanted one then. She tried to imagine other scenes in her mother and Natalie’s history when this position would have helped them. She knew Uncle Peter had broken up with Natalie once, right before he proposed. Her mother had consoled her then and persuaded her to write to him. They lived happily ever after.
Natalie didn’t say a word while Ruth rolled back and forth in her embrace. This was another silent method of Natalie’s that was worth remembering. It didn’t deny her mother’s failure but it didn’t make fake promises of a gleaming future either. Giordana’s heart had been a little bit broken last year. She had asked Derek from English to a movie and he said no, smirking at the invitation. Her mother’s idea of comfort was to fill her ears with declarations of her rare charms, all the wonderful dates she would have, and other crap, but a year passed and exactly nothing had happened to her. Giordana vowed that if her mother came crying to her, she would stay absolutely quiet and put her arms around her the same way that Natalie was holding her now.
Giordana walked around the far side of the staircase, making herself visible so that she could enter the room. Her mother looked up from her sister’s embrace and held out an arm to Giordana. “Over here, darling.”
“Am I interrupting?” Giordana asked.
“No. I’m just sad about Dad.”
Giordana approached, eager to hear whatever her mother had to reveal. What was going to happen next? Was she going to call him? He must have known where they were. She wanted facts and feelings. Instead Ruth closed the topic off with a smile. She wrapped her hands around each of Giordana’s wrists and said, “At least I have you, my gorgeous girl.”
Her mother settled down eventually; she and Natalie were drinking some kind of healthy tea and talking about their childhood. Peter was upstairs getting the boys into bed.
Ben left for Janelle’s. A minute later, Giordana announced, “I’m going out for a walk.” Her mother gave a regal back-in-control nod, as if the sole reason for ending her marriage was to bring Giordana somewhere placid enough that she could take long walks in the evening.
As soon as she was out of the house, she turned invisible and bolted after her brother, sprinting across lawns to get in front of him. Ben made it to Janelle’s front steps, straightened his posture, and rang the doorbell. Giordana was next to him. Like it was some nightclub, Janelle opened the door, looked around, and pulled him in. Giordana considered squeezing in, but she didn’t think quickly enough. Janelle shut the door.
Giordana paced on the pavement, waiting for them to come out. Every other front yard had jasmine growing somewhere, as regular as air fresheners. The reason it was safe on these streets was because there was no one there. They were all inside watching television. The hum of air-conditioning fought with the pulse of cicadas. The former, she realized, cocooned everyone from the latter.
After five minutes, she looked into the front room and it was empty. Had they gone out a back door? She snuck around to the other side of the house, to the only lighted room she could see.
They were there, on a chaise longue. Janelle’s top was off and Ben’s hands were all over her bra.
As Thea said: You can’t spell chastity without tit.
Giordana was mesmerized. There was no discussion, no negotiation, and no polite protests. They were open-mouth kissing with equal force. Together, they unhooked Janelle’s bra. They didn’t even know each other, but—Giordana knew from many paperbacks—you didn’t need to.
Ben was grinding his pelvis against Janelle’s. Exactly as Emily had reported. It was very animal. Janelle didn’t look like she cared. In fact, she was the first to open her shorts, pulling his hand there, directing the action fully south of her belly button. Giordana couldn’t see it and had no urge to pass through walls for better access, but it was all happening. There was no slowing down to talk feelings. She was embarrassed for Janelle. Giordana would never go this far with a boy who told her he was here on vacation. Was Janelle doing this because Peter and Natalie had been good to her? It didn’t look like that was on her mind.
Ben stood up and at first Giordana thought some kind of decency had seized his conscience, but what he was doing was pulling down his pants. Watching her brother was the opposite of okay, but she decided that her invisibility provided some sort of technicality that allowed it. Besides, it was educational. Anthropological.
Ben’s erection sprang up. Ick. It looked like the ones in Thea’s father’s dirty magazines, but more naked because it was real life. Or because it was her brother’s. Janelle grabbed for it on an instinct that Giordana couldn’t fathom. There were a few words exchanged and Ben leaned over to reach into the back pocket of his pants. Absurd. His soft body driven by this rigid dick pointing to the ceiling. He retrieved a foil packet and stood again proud, almost posing with it for Janelle who nodded like she was happy about something. In the next movement, he had unwrapped the condom and was pulling it on. Then he pulled her on. Her face showed a flare of adjustment, but then she was right at home.
Janelle’s expression became blank and rushed. What did she think of him? What did he think of her? Was anyone thinking about the two percent failure rate of condoms? It was all a problem Giordana had hoped would be solved by watching. It wasn’t. And she didn’t think she really wanted to hear.
Ben shined with sweat. Janelle pushed him off and he did it some more from a different angle. Without saying anything to her, he shuffled their position, as if he didn’t want to miss this chance to try the whole zodiac. Suddenly he held Janelle still for a long moment. His eyes closed and his body shook, as if he was struggling with balance. Giordana knew what this was. Unbelievable. She stared at their faces—her brother’s eyes closed, Janelle looking self-consciously around the room—but they didn’t tell her anything about what had just happened. Her brother went limp. Janelle looked neither here nor there about the whole thing. The Love Machine wouldn’t have stopped until Janelle was helpless and quivering. Her body looked more ordinary now. Her hair was flat. It was all over, so she climbed over him to leave, maybe to get a glass of water. The whole thing looked more like a workout than anything else.
With Janelle out of the room, Giordana was left watching Ben’s naked, self-satisfied grossness. He mopped up with a tissue. She felt more alone with him like this and she backed away from the window until Janelle returned. The two of them squeezed next to each other on the chaise longue again, sort of dressed, sort of paying attention to each other and sort of staring into space. Though Giordana couldn’t hear what they were saying, they apparently had things to talk about. An enigma.
Giordana went home and showered. She crept onto her side of the sofa bed, careful not to jostle her mother who had already turned off the light.
The deafening silence of the suburbs made it hard for Giordana to relax. There was so much to process. She fidgeted under the covers. It was as if the stillness around her made her questions more important. What had Ben and Janelle said at the swimming pool that made that scene possible? Was he actually appealing or was he simply her only choice? What if Giordana couldn’t see her brother clearly and if he was actually hot? If Ben and Janelle were going to be a couple, would Giordana be able to be friends with Janelle? She couldn’t see how. Most of all, she didn’t understand what made Janelle go from being so “don’t
be weird” to being on her back and panting in the space of an afternoon? That was what was weird. No logic. All of them said and did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Under the sheet, her mother turned and reached over, gliding her fingers through her daughter’s hair. Half asleep, she told Giordana, “Everything’s fine.”
Riding the bus invisible wasn’t stealing. The three-hour trip to the city would happen whether or not she was on it and Giordana didn’t weigh all that much. She didn’t even hog a seat because as soon as anyone walked over to where she was, she sprang right up so that they wouldn’t sit on her lap. Best of all, she could stare. It was awesome. She watched women, wondering about their bodies. She watched men, wondering what they had done last night. She studied the faces of the most handsome men and paired herself with them on a hotel bed somewhere, gazing at each other as they rocked together toward—as she’d read one particular orgasm described—oblivion. It sounded nice.
Arriving at the main station, she stayed invisible but had to keep alert to not cause trouble. The streets were filled with more crowds and hazards than she remembered. It was a big game of hopscotch getting to Thea’s house. Occasionally she would bump into people and they would shoot a dirty look to the closest person they could see. If she’d wanted to, she could have incited a riot. She dodged people in work clothes, mothers with strollers, homeless people with their bags of stuff, and dog owners with a few spooked dogs that seemed to look directly at her.
Giordana looked in Thea’s front windows and rang the bell. If Thea had opened the door without asking who was there—which she sometimes did despite knowing better—Giordana would sneak in. But no one came to the door.
She walked the three blocks to Sprinkles and that’s where she found her posse. Three girls wearing party dresses and eye shadow in the middle of the day. Like an ad for adolescence. They had probably come there to look for Giordana and been told that she hadn’t shown up for work. They had evidently lived through the trauma and were having ice cream. Thea had clearly bought double scoops for all of them with money her parents had intended to be used for food that week. Emily was wearing Giordana’s yellow dress. What Emily liked to call the mysteries of sleepovers always managed to work in her favor.
What the Family Needed Page 3