Riptides (Lengths)

by Campbell, Steph

  “I’m sorry I never got to meet your mother, but I can tell you that she’d be proud as hell of who you’ve become.”

  She looks up at me, her face stricken, and tries to sit up so fast, she bumps her head on the headboard. The sheet slithers down off her body and leaves her gorgeous tits exposed. I grab her close, rubbing her head, glad as hell I get to call this perfect woman mine.

  “I didn’t mean to make you upset, Jess. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I get that it must be hard for you. I get that.” I press her hair aside, looking for a bump, but it seems okay to me. I kiss it anyway, taking a deep breath of that clean green apple scent.

  She shakes against me and whispers, “Sometimes I don’t think she’d be very proud of the way I’ve lived my life at all.”

  I feel a sting in my throat. “What? What are you talking about? I was impressed with the fact that you had a PoliSci degree before I knew you did it all on your own. If you think for a second your mother would be upset that you gave a career up to open a bakery, you’re completely wrong. Also, even if she was pissed at first, one bite of your death by chocolate cupcake, and she’d be totally convinced you were born to bake.” I smile at her, and her face crumples.

  “Thank you, Enzo,” she says, her voice shaking and her eyes focused on her trembling hands. “I’ve never met anyone who believed in me the way you do.”

  “Then you’ve been around some crazy assholes your whole life, babe,” I tell her. “There’s nothing about you that doesn’t amaze me.”

  “I have to tell you something,” she says. She licks her lips and nods, like she’s telling herself that she has to go through with this. I sit quietly. “I had a boyfriend in high school. I dated him the year before Mom died, and his family pretty much took me in after. They were so wonderful. They really treated me like one of their own. And they just kind of assumed he and I would be together for the long haul, you know?” She takes a deep breath, and I nod, waiting for her to go on.

  But I think I can see where this is going. She’s going to trust me to share the weight of one more loss. Tell me how she didn’t just lose her mother, but this second family. I wonder what happened when high school ended and she and the guy eventually broke it off? I remember being torn up when Lydia and her long-term high school boyfriend, Jarvis, broke up. He taught me how to skateboard. Bought me my first BMX bike. Slipped me my first Playboy after my bar mitzvah. I loved that guy like a brother. I think I cried more than Lydia when things went south between them.

  “So when he joined the service, I just——” Her phone rings, and we both jump. She grabs it off the side table by the bed and bites her lip. “Shit. I’ll be, like, one second, okay? Wait for me?”

  “Of course.” I get out of bed and love the way her eyes follow me around the room as I pull on boxer briefs and a beat-up pair of jeans.

  The fact that her eyes are practically undressing me where I stand lets me know she’ll be ready to go again once she’s off the phone. I brew some coffee for her, because my girl’s gonna need a shot of caffeine to keep up with what I have planned for us.

  To say I’m disappointed when she rushes from my room, fully dressed, is a massive understatement. But I curb my feelings and turn to the cabinet and find a travel mug, dump her coffee——black, two sugars——in and hold it out to her. I’m not about to give her shit. If she needs to go, I’ll be happy to wait for her to get back.

  “Enzo, it’s a customer. I’m almost late for a delivery and she’ll have my head if I screw this up,” she explains as she takes the cup and comes up on her toes to kiss my cheek. “Thank you so much. I don’t want to go——”

  “Forget it,” I interrupt. “If I hadn’t asked you to make the cake for Cohen and Maren, you wouldn’t be this backed up. So it’s my fault. It’s all good. You can tie me to the bed and make me pay for it later.”

  She nuzzles her nose into my neck and laughs. “That sounds perfect.” She steps back, her brows furrowed. “But, seriously, Enzo, we need to talk. I need to finish telling you…everything. It’s so important. And I really should have told you sooner. I feel so stupid for not telling you sooner.”

  I gather her into my arms and kiss her softly. “No rush, doll. We have all the time in the world. Whatever you need. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you, Jess.”

  She deepens the kiss, then rips her mouth away and flees out of my apartment like she’s got the devil at her heels. I sip my coffee in my silent kitchen as the echo of the slamming front door reverberates through me, unable to shrug off this persistent doubt that twists low and hard in my gut.

  I can’t put my finger on what it is or is about, so I finally just stop trying.

  ***

  My mother has called a mandatory Rodriguez family meeting. I’ve got a few hours to kill while Jess is at the bakery, so I head over. At the very least my family is good lowbrow side entertainment: like a poorly funded, semi-pathetic travelling circus. Mom’s pretending her little meeting has something to do with the wedding and what we all have to do to pull it off without a hitch. I think the real reason is because she’s going into nervous breakdown mode over Cohen getting married and “leaving” her and my father for good.

  Lydia was supposed to get the stellar career and become a respected pillar of the community.

  Cece was going to bury her nose in books forever and will probably still be racking up degrees when our grandkids were ready for college.

  I think my parents expect me to join a rodeo or start dealing blackjack at a seedy casino…something unreliable with a tang of shamefulness.

  Genie was always our wildcard: the fact that she got married to an immigrant to help him secure a green card and then fell madly in love with him doesn’t surprise me at all. Just like it wouldn’t have surprised me if she chose a different ridiculous movie plot to base her life around: falling for a guy she heard on some crazy radio dating show and met up with on the top of the Empire State Building, saving some guy from getting run over by a train and then pretending to be his fiancée while he wallowed in a coma, or maybe celebrating her first awesome promotion by having unprotected sex with a loser nerd she decided to stick with once she had their baby.

  The bottom line is, Genie was going to shock us all, no questions.

  But Cohen? It’s always been my brother whose shoulders were piled high with all the ancestral Rodriguez stress.

  Dad had been taking him to work since he could toddle, no matter what other cool shit was going on in the neighborhood. Cohen missed many a sweet swell or a long, pointless summer bike ride so he could help unload side tables or inventory massive, dusty rolls of rugs.

  I, on the other hand, just had to adjust my whine to a high enough pitch to send a shiver up and down my father’s spine. My whining worked like an epic symphony of nails on a chalkboard, and my father would yank Cohen out the door by the arm, telling my mother I was perezoso.

  Since laziness is still the cardinal sin in the Rodriguez household, that word was more chilling than a whole string of crazy Spanglish expletives.

  Long hours of doing whatever the hell I wanted without my father double-checking tally-marks over my shoulder or forcing me to unload delivery trucks in the stifling furniture store warehouse gave me a decent reason to grow a tough skin. I let his remarks roll off my back, and the only thing I regret is that Cohen still bears the brunt of the family’s wacked out expectations.

  “It’s just that you and Maren got the LA store in working order. I know your new firm appreciates having the Rodriguez accounts. That was no small thing, Cohen. No small feat. Why would you give up now, right at the height of your game?” He bangs his soup spoon on the table like a gavel.

  Mom frowns and clucks her tongue at him as she puts wine glasses out and hurries back to the kitchen. Lydia sighs.

  “Papi, it’s not like the furniture business has a peak. People will always need bedroom sets. Cohen can do this when he’s an
old, old man. Plus that, Cohen’s accounting firm is amazing. Someone else will take over, so it’s not like you’re going to be left high and dry.” Lydia glances at Cohen with so much pity, it’s clear she can actually picture him still working there as a graying, bitter version of our father.

  “I agree with Lydia,” our mother chimes in, setting a massive pot of soup in the center of the table. Cece comes behind her with the bread bowls, and I jump up and get the wine. Holy shit, we’re gonna need the wine.

  Plus the mezcal my father keeps locked in his study for especially shitty bunk bed sales quarters or whatever.

  “Dinah, how can you even say that?” Dad’s moustache quivers with derision. “You know how long I had to work, how many hours I had to put in to keep things competitive. Why slow down now? Why let some outsider, some forastero, take things over? I don’t like it. Not at all.”

  Cohen glances over his shoulder at the front door and sighs. Maren is doing something crazy with her veil or her shoes and dye or who knows what, so she’ll be late to this charming little soiree. I’m sure my brother wants this particular portion of the family entertainment over with before she gets back and has to squirm through every word.

  Or, worse yet, has to look back and forth, totally lost, as my parents switch languages and jabber in Spanish while Cohen glowers, way too irritated to translate.

  “I appreciate all the work you put into the place, Dad. I really do. And I was glad that I could keep working with you even while I did my own thing. It was a good transition. One of the things that makes you a great businessman is that you’re always looking forward.” Cohen takes a deep breath and eyes the wine I uncorked with a desperate glance. “And that’s what going back to diversify my degree is all about. I’ve explained that to you over and over. I’ll be making new connections. Getting things going from a perspective we never thought about before. And this move is what needs to happen if Maren is going to get the licensing she needs to do speech pathology.”

  “El casado quiere casa, y costal para la plaza,” Mom says, tucking a strand of hair back in her bun. “They need to make their own decisions now that they’ll be married. Remember how it was when we were young, mi amor. Cohen and Maren need to make their own way.” She takes a deep breath and folds her hands together hard, like she’s trying so damn hard to accept it.

  “La sangre pesa mas que el agua,” Dad mumbles into his——beef only——albondigas soup.

  What sucks is that I love this soup. The green chili salsa gives it a kick, and Mom’s cornbread bread bowls are pretty damn amazing. But our father is about to leave everyone with a bad taste in their mouths in three, two…

  “Excuse me?” Cohen’s voice is slow and furious. He puts his hands flat on the table. “Maren is my blood, Papi. She’s my family.”

  “She’s our family,” our father objects, tossing his spoon down like a toddler. “I just don’t see the need for a woman who’s doing well and about to be married to a capable man breaking away from her home and family.” He gestures around the table. “We’re here for you both. Maren has all she could ask for right here. Why does she feel like she needs to go to this school now too?”

  Oh, my poor, old-fashioned, chauvinistic father is so about to get his comeuppance from his wild daughters. I really wish I was drinking something stronger so I could soak this all in appropriately.

  “What was that, Papi?” Cece is totally still except for her wild curls, which always seem to be springing around.

  “Not for unmarried girls like you!” Dad tries to amend. I pray for someone to please, please take this man’s shovel away. He’s digging so deep and so damn fast, and I know from experience it will only get worse. “You go to college, get the degrees, wonderful!” The heavy way he says the words lets us all know he’s equating “degrees” with “newfangled time-wasting” and “wonderful” with “I can barely stand to think of the time you’re wasting on doing this insane schoolwork instead of making me grandchildren with some nice Jewish man you decided to marry.” “Or Lydia, being a lawyer. That’s a good, solid career, giving back to the community until she settles down. But for girls like Maren and Genie——”

  “What about girls like me?” Gen demands, half-standing so fast, her bread bowl tilts far to one side and delicious waves of soup splash into the ceramic bowl underneath it.

  Adam clears his throat. “Mr. Rodriguez, Gen was just selected for the Rosalind Franklin Biology Grant. You have to be in the top five percent of all biology applicants just to make the semi-finals. She’s an extraordinary mind and will be an extremely influential force in the scientific community.”

  I let out a long, low whistle.

  Lydia drops her spoon and Cece jumps out of her chair to grab Genevieve around the shoulders, hugging her so hard and tight, she lifts the chair legs off the floor. “Genie! Congratulations. What amazing news!” she cries. “You never said a word!”

  Gen blushes and gives Adam a sidelong glance that’s half adoring, half irritated. “Thank you. I just found out. I didn’t mention it because I’m not sure I’m accepting it.”

  “What?” Cece lets go of Gen’s shoulders so abruptly, the chair wobbles back and forth.

  Adam catches one side with his hand and steadies it, his proud look getting clouded with exasperation. “Cece, Lydia, please talk sense to her. This is an incredible honor, an incredible opportunity——”

  “It would mean a year studying in Belgium in an affiliate program.”

  “Belgium is glorious. You have to visit Mechelen. They have this bell ringing school there, and you can just order a glass of wine, listen to the bells…it’s heaven. Complete heaven.” Lydia tilts her head back and sighs.

  Cohen and I trade eye rolls and snort.

  “What?” Lydia demands, snapping her gaze from me to him. “Just because you two bums think downing a couple of beers and catching waves is the height of cultural experience doesn’t mean we all agree.”

  Before either of us can answer, Mom breaks in. “Why not do this, Genie? You and Adam will have an adventure.”

  We all look over at the two of them. Gen stares ahead, twisting her napkin tight in her fingers, and Adam focuses on his soup like he’s trying to molecularly dissect it with his eyes.

  After a few long seconds of silence, Adam clears his throat. “I, uh, may be up for a position here. I can’t leave. Gen would have to go alone.”

  “I won’t.” She turns her head to the side, all her long, dark hair swishing around her arms. “I can’t leave you for an entire year.”

  Her voice is a hiss, but we can all hear it clearly. Adam shakes his head.

  “I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. We can do this. It won’t be easy, but we can do this, Genevieve. I believe in you.” His voice is low, and I feel like I shouldn’t be listening to this. This is private business. This is——

  “This is what happens when you take marriage vows,” my father declares, holding his hands up like he’s finally got this prime example of what he’s been trying to explain all along. “A man and his wife…they stay together. They get married, and they stay together! They make a life together.”

  If this wasn’t all so tragic, I’d have a moment of hysterical laughter over this. My sister——long the sibling most likely to drive my father crazy——is now being supported by dear old dad, but she’s so used to disagreeing with him, I can tell from the way her lips are twitching that she wants to argue the point.

  Cece beats her to it. “Sweetie, you have all the support in the world. It’s just one year. One. You two will be married for decades. Take this chance and go. Adam would never…” She presses her lips tight like she can’t even finish that thought.

  “I know that,” Gen bites out, fisting her hands in her hair. “Damnit, I know that!” She stands up and backs away from the table. Adam swivels around to look at her, and she’s talking just to him. “I’ll miss you. Every day. To the point where I can’t think about anything else but how badly I miss yo
u. I know it’s not like that for you, but we’re not the same, Adam. I’m not ashamed that you’re the most important thing in my life. Maybe someday I can do this, be away from you like this. But not now. Not now!”

  She stomps up the stairs to her old room and we all sit tense even after the door slams shut.

  “Excuse me,” Adam mumbles, nodding tightly at my parents before he beelines it to Gen’s room.

  In the deafening silence they leave behind, my brother goes back to the dead horse we were all beating before Gen’s nervous breakdown and proceeds to give it a few more whacks. “Dad, Maren needs this. I need this. It’s going to be fine for the business.” Cohen takes his spoon and wields it like he wishes it was a knife——or at least a fork.

  “Fine for the business,” Dad repeats under his breath. “Like any one of you has any idea how perilous it is to keep any business going.”

  We collectively choose to ignore the tension buzzing around us and are in the middle of slurping lukewarm, but still delicious, soup when Maren waltzes in, dragging Whit behind her.

  “Maren!” we all chorus, making her jump back and smile uncertainly, those huge baby blues taking us all in with that mix of love and trepidation most people outside the family seem to regard us with.

  I love Maren, and I think this family is good for her. She’s going to need a strong backbone to be around a bunch of pushy assholes like us. Especially when she and Cohen start popping out kids.

  “Um, hi!” She gives a shy wave and rushes to kiss Cohen softly. There’s this second, this quiet connection that’s like an electrical current between them, and it drowns us all out. Cohen and Maren are locked so deeply into each other, no one else exists. Damn, I’m jealous as fuck of that. “I’m so sorry I kept you all waiting. Whit and I were having the hardest time getting the people who dye the shoes to match my grandmother’s black opals.”

  Mami lets out a tsk just barely under her breath.