“Barry, we’ll fix it up with them.”
“After the way he insulted me—and you?”
“The shock—”
“We are not crawling.” His boyishly angular face set, he began pulling books from the shelves. “Never.”
The door opened. Clara stood in the narrow hallway, her longish face like a white egg suspended in the dimness.
Studiously avoiding glancing at Alicia, she said to her son, “Dear, you mustn’t take Dad seriously when he gets upset. We don’t want you to leave.”
“This time Dad’s right,” Barry said stiffly. “I have my marital responsibilities.”
“Your, uhh, wife, could stay here, too. You’ve got the trundle bed.”
“I refuse to sponge off of you.”
“But how else will you finish school? Barry, you must finish school.”
“I’ll get that law degree, don’t you worry.”
“I can’t bear any more of these family ruptures. . . .” Clara’s jaw trembled. “It’s ruined my health, you and Beth not knowing your grandparents. You will visit, won’t you?”
“That’s up to Dad. He’ll have to apologize to my wife.”
Clara blinked uncertainly.
“Barry, it’s okay,” Alicia said.
“I categorically refuse to enter a house where my wife’s been insulted,” Barry said sternly.
“You know Dad, dear,” Clara sighed. “He means well, but he’s never apologized to anyone in his life.”
“Then it’s about time he did.”
“You used to be such a good boy,” Clara said, and tottered away. She had not once permitted her gaze to rest on Alicia.
Barry shut the door. “So they’ll let us have the cottage, the people you work for?” he muttered.
“Sure,” she said, covering her uncertainty with a smile.
• • •
The Youngs were so shocked when they learned that their maid was married, and to a “white college student” (yes, Mrs. Young actually said it), that neither of them noticed that she had lost her accent. When Alicia asked if she could continue on the job and have the cottage for her and Barry, both Youngs put on grave faces, and Mrs. Young sank onto the slick plastic that covered the brocade upholstery, her somewhat protuberant eyes fixed on her husband.
He said obligingly, “Alicia, while Mrs. Young and I discuss this, will you and your husband step outside.”
Alicia and Barry waited on the front step.
After a long ten minutes, they were invited back inside. Dr. Young did the talking, extolling the construction and plumbing of the room in back. “In a neighborhood like this we could get top rent for it,” he said, neglecting to mention that the local zoning was R-1, restricted to single-family dwellings. “But Mrs. Young and I are very, very fond of Alicia, and so are Ronnie and Lonnie. And you seem like a sensible sort of young man, not wild or noisy. So we’ll let you have it—on a trial basis, of course.”
“You won’t regret it,” Barry said diffidently.
“Naturally we’ll deduct a little from Alicia’s salary. Does fifty dollars strike you as fair, Alicia?”
Alicia knew that at one twenty-five she was already being underpaid. Fifty dollars less? But what choice was there?
She nodded. “Fine.”
“After you’ve done the dinner dishes, you’re absolutely free to go out there,” Dr. Young said. “Unless Mrs. Young and I have a date. Then, of course, you’ll baby-sit in the house with the boys. Your husband—”
Barry coughed, repeating his name. “It’s Barry Cordiner, sir.”
“Yes, Corder. You understand of course that this arrangement doesn’t include food.”
Mrs. Young said, “I won’t tolerate Alicia feeding you from my kitchen.”
Alicia leaned toward Barry, anticipating some of the hot temper he had displayed with his parents. But he nodded docilely. “Of course.”
In parting, Mrs. Young said, “Alicia, we expect you here at six thirty, sharp.”
• • •
They checked into an ancient motel on Pico. A radio blared the music of Argentina on one side, on the other a drunken marital argument rose and fell. When Barry climbed on top of his wife’s luscious body his erection turned to marshmallow.
The evening had reached its final defeat.
5
Neither of them slept much. The next morning they arrived at the Youngs’ well before six thirty.
Leaving Alicia whipping Birds Eye frozen orange juice to a froth in the Osterizer, Barry went into the small backyard. Alicia’s word, cottage, had roused in him visions of a vine-draped setting for Werther or somesuch rustic romance, so it took him a full minute to accept that she had meant the room stuck behind the garage.
Yanking open the unlocked, warped door, he was blasted by the pungent aroma of fertilizer. Dr. Young, a gardening enthusiast, stored his weedkillers, trowels, clippers and other equipment on the rough redwood shelves, using the floor space for huge plastic sacks of Bandini steer manure. Moving gingerly around the bags, Barry opened a plywood door, gagging involuntarily at a toilet whose interior was a stygian brown.
He had to straighten the garage before he could begin shifting tools and those endless, heavy, odiferous sacks. At ten thirty, when Mrs. Young drove off in her two-tone Dodge, Alicia came out.
“What a fabulous job you’ve done!” she exclaimed.
She dumped an entire bottle of bleach in the toilet, leaving it there while they scrubbed walls, windows and the warped floorboards. Mrs. Young had granted them certain furniture stored in the garage loft. After making the box springs and mattress, Alicia surveyed their quarters. “When I hang a sheet in that corner to rig up a closet and put your books on the shelves, it’ll be perfect.” Her face glowed with a light film of sweat and happiness.
Barry didn’t know what to say. His requirements, to his own mind, were modest; he hadn’t been reared in architectural splendors like his cousins, but God knows one needn’t have grandiose expectations to want better than a scuzzy lavatory and the ineradicable stink of manure.
• • •
That night she returned after nine, bringing with her the scent of hand lotion. He was at the table studying for the following day’s poli-sci quiz. Bending over him, she circled his throat with her arms, drawing his head back against those voluptuous breasts. He got up for a welcome-home hug, not intending anything sexy—he still had to learn several more points of the Volstead Act—but she pressed her palms to his buttocks, crushing against him as she made small whimpering sounds. Her passion astonished him. Previously she had responded with shy pleasure, never taking the initiative.
“Make love to me, Barry,” she pleaded hoarsely. “Make love to me.”
He responded with an instant hard-on. “Let me get a rubber.”
She was pulling him down onto the mattress, guiding his hand beneath her short uniform and under her panties to the hot, slick wetness.
Summoning every ounce of willpower, he pulled away from her embrace. “Be right back.”
The sight of the toilet bowl, now a paler but equally evocative brown, demolished his erection.
He returned to find their one lamp dimmed by a scarf and his wife stretched naked on the bed. The nipples pointing up at him were the palest pink while the vulva exposed by her spread thighs was deep rose. Again he thought of goddesses, but this time of the ancient ones before civilization began, the deities served by fertility rites.
His hardness reasserting itself, he fell on top of her, grasping the full curves of her breasts so tightly that she cried out.
“Is this what you like?” he demanded hoarsely.
“Yes,” she whimpered.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Make love to me.”
“No, say the word.”
“Fuck. . . .”
“Beg me.”
“Fuck me, please fuck me.”
His own hoarse breathing filling the universe, he entered her, pu
mping deeper and deeper into her rosy mysteries, coming so intensely that it ached far up in his balls.
When his gasping ceased, he kissed her ear. “Hey, when you’re hot, you’re hot.” Wishing he were uninhibited enough to tell her of those favorable comparisons with goddesses, he fell asleep almost instantly.
Alicia pulled the blanket over his shoulders, then began to cry. But why was she crying? Hadn’t she accomplished what she had set out to do? Hadn’t her husband just made love to her?
Alicia, too, had brooded about the previous night, deciding the failure was hers. I’m just not sexy, she had thought miserably. Maybe he can’t make it because he senses I’m not leveling with him.
But honesty was out of the question.
When she’d first spoken to Barry Cordiner at Ship’s Coffee Shop, an infallibly sure intuition had informed her that he might be educated and say things she’d hitherto only read in books, but he was utterly naive about one word: poverty. He had no comprehension how deep and shameful a thing poverty could be. He believed that being poor meant having a father named Lopez who was occasionally laid off from his trucking job, scratching together the mortgage payments and maybe eating beans at the end of the month. He didn’t know about sleeping on the damp earth, going hungry until you were giddy, peeing in the fields. The reality would assuredly send him packing.
She knuckled her eyes dry, tiptoeing into the bathroom to use Juanita’s vaginal foam. It probably would have been safer if she could have squeezed it in before and after as she had in Las Vegas, but this time he’d had on a Trojan, so she guessed it was okay. She wished Juanita were here to discuss the problem with. She doesn’t even know I’m married. Then Alicia thought, I wonder if she knows anything about Barry. Alicia had written glowingly about him, but Juanita, humiliated by her functional illiteracy, might not have asked Henry or anyone to read the letters to her. Alicia, barely fifteen, longing for the half sister who had been a mother to her, began to cry again.
• • •
The following morning, when everyone had left the house, Alicia walked the mile and a half to San Vincente Boulevard to the nearest pay phone. She called the Taylor Ranch.
Mrs. Taylor answered. Juanita and Henry, she said in a clenched tone, were no longer there. Mr. Taylor had been forced to fire Henry. The Lopezes had left no forwarding address.
Of course they hadn’t left an address. Pickers don’t have addresses. There was no way of telling Juanita anything. No way of finding her. Ever.
Dropping the phone so it dangled by its cord, leaving the little pile of coins on the shelf, Alicia blindly left the booth.
• • •
Three weeks later Barry and Beth sat drinking coffee on the broad, crowded flight of steps in front of Ackerman Hall. Barry, who had not spoken to anyone in the family since the disastrous night he’d left his parents’ house, was surprised and delighted when Beth showed up just as he was getting off work at the Student Union. Since it was lunch hour, all available tables inside and out were taken, and students were eating on the red brick steps. Over the roar of laughing conversation and the clashing of crockery, he boasted about the fabulous cottage and about the three articles he was writing for the Daily Bruin on John Hersey’s The Child Buyer. He needed to prove to Beth—and the entire Cordiner clan—how excellently he was managing.
“Barry, listen,” Beth said. “Things haven’t been going well since you left. Mom’s been in for an EKG. And Dad’s gotten into a running battle with the head grip.”
“Now tell me what I’m meant to do about it? Come crawling back to beg their pardon for marrying a terrific, fine girl I happen to be crazy about?”
“How are her parents taking it?”
Barry’s defensive truculence faded momentarily. When Alicia had told him she’d phoned her family, her huge blue eyes had been wet. She didn’t say anything about the call, but he was positive the Lopezes were coldly unforgiving about her marrying outside the Church.
“You see?” Beth said. “Everybody’s upset. Uncle Desmond, Aunt Rosalynd, Uncle Frank, Aunt Lily—”
“Stop laying a guilt trip on me!”
“I don’t mean to.”
“Why else’re you here?”
Playing with her narrow gold bangle, she said, “PD asked me to talk to you.”
“PD? How’s he in on the act?”
“He’s invited us all down to Newport.” Frank and Lily Zaffarano owned a bayfront house there. “This Sunday.”
“Us?” Barry asked. “Define the word ‘us.’”
“You, me, PD, Alicia, Hap, Maxim.”
“Give PD our regrets,” Barry said. “Beth, you might as well be aware of this for future reference. Until Dad apologizes to Alicia, I’m not exposing her to the family.”
“PD wants us to get together, that’s all. Us. Not Dad and Mom—or any of the aunts and uncles.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Well, let me see how Alicia feels about it.” Barry used a stern tone. But as far as he was concerned, a Sunday away from the dreadful room was one notch below paradise.
6
Newport curves along a narrow spit of land across from Balboa: the paired resort towns cuddle around a large, boat-filled bay. During the summer Angelenos flock down, clogging traffic for miles. In mid-November the roads weren’t jammed, but nevertheless Barry concentrated on his driving. This morning they’d had their first spat. Barry had suggested Alicia wear shorts, but since she owned only the Taylor girl’s hand-me-down white ones, ancient and mended, a too graphic reminder of the Henry Lopez incident, she’d put on her red sundress with the stole. Barry had not commented, he had simply remained silent. Since then he had responded to her attempts at conversation monosyllabically. She was anxious enough about an entire day with his sister and those rich cousins, and his silence made her stomach twitch.
In Newport, Barry turned left, crossing a short, humpbacked bridge. “Lido Isle,” he announced. “The most exclusive of the exclusive.”
“It’s nice,” she said, grateful that he had spoken, yet unsure why these houses jammed so close together were considered special.
Barry parked, leading the way to a two-story, white-shingled Cape Cod. As they walked along the side path, Alicia realized how deceptive the frontages were. The Zaffarano house went back at least a hundred feet. In the bright noon sunlight, the acres of fresh white paint gleamed, blurring in front of her eyes. She reached for Barry’s hand. His fingers dangled, limply unresponsive.
They turned a corner, emerging onto a planked deck. A brisk breeze shimmered whitecaps across the azure bay. The big Chris-Craft with the royal blue canvas cover that matched the house’s royal blue shutters bobbled and banged its bumpers against the swaying dock. The deck was protected by high glass walls, and in the still warmth, PD, Hap and Maxim were stretched out sunbathing. Beth, fiddling with a camera, wore a sleeveless yellow blouse and matching shorts.
Barry called, “Hi, guys.”
The others looked up.
Alicia, acutely conscious of the tightness of her sundress top, and of the black patent shoes with the killing pointed toes and stiletto heels, formed a smile.
PD pushed to his feet. His compact, well-muscled, dark-tanned body agleam with Coppertone, he strode toward them. “Welcome,” he said, smiling. “So you finally made it.”
Maxim raised up on one long, thin arm, giving Barry and Alicia his acid smile. “Hell, PD, you know these horny honeymooners, they probably pulled over for a quickie.”
Beth held up her finger, smiling. “Hold it.” Bending her smooth head, she aimed her camera at PD, who was standing between Barry and Alicia.
After the click, Hap moved into the group. Alicia, who even in her heels was nearly a head shorter, couldn’t help noting that the curly blond hairs covering his chest became brown as they cut in a narrow line down to his navel, turning almost black where the line disappeared beneath his faded madras trunks.
Hap pun
ched at Barry’s shoulder in greeting before he kissed Alicia’s cheek. The light touch of his lips caused a surprising tingle of pleasure and her sense of being on enemy territory dwindled.
“Beth’s made guacamole,” PD said. “Her one big specialty.”
“Yeah,” Maxim added, “and the bitch refused to serve it up until her twinnie-twin-twin arrived. So hurry and suit up before we starve.”
Barry glanced down, his lips pulling into a line that wasn’t quite a smile, an expression that Alicia had come to dread: it meant she had somehow embarrassed him.
She said quickly, “I forgot to bring a suit.” Actually she didn’t own one, and hadn’t been able to sneak off for an hour to buy one at any of the intimidatingly smart little boutiques lining San Vincente Boulevard.
“No sweat,” PD said. “Mom keeps a slew in the dressing room for all sizes and shapes.”
On the other side of the house were twin doors with bright brass silhouettes designating the sex of the users. Alicia found herself in a kind of sitting room approximately twice as large as their cottage and furnished with wicker and bright plaids. A row of swimsuits hung from wooden pegs. Three cotton-ruffled numbers for little girls. Two outsizes with skirts to cover dimpled, matronly thighs. She tried on the remaining four. The red and the pink bikini were both far too loose. The black one-piece knit was too tight on top. The white Lastex, also one-piece, fitted to perfection. It dipped to a deep V between her breasts, while cutouts revealed the curves where her waist met her hips. Turning this way and that on her bare feet to view her image in the mirror, she had to admit that the suit was a knockout on her. Then she frowned uncertainly. Would Barry get that embarrassed little smile when she emerged?
A rap sounded on the door. “It’s me, Hap. I was getting worried. You decent?”
“I’m not quite sure.”
He came in, staring at her. “Hey,” he whispered. “Hey.”
“It’s okay on me?” She could feel herself coloring. The intensity of his gaze embarrassed her, yet at the same time she felt a delightful melting in the pit of her stomach.
“Spectacular.” His voice was husky, and he seemed incapable of looking away from her.
Dreams Are Not Enough Page 5