A Good Family

by A. H. Kim

  Q: Are you acquainted with Mr. Martin Lindstrom?

  A: Sure, that’s Beth’s older brother.

  Q: How would you describe their relationship?

  A: Beth and Martin are really close. They spend holidays together. They go on vacation together. They even have a business together.

  Q: Ms. Lindstrom has a business with her brother?

  A: Yeah, sure. The two of them plus a third guy.

  Q: Do you know what kind of business it is?

  A: Beth told me they sell stuff to the government.

  Q: Do you know what role Ms. Lindstrom plays in the business? What she does?

  A: Beth mostly just gives her brother money, and Martin and the other guy run the actual business.

  Q: How long have Ms. Lindstrom and her brother been in business together?

  A: Oh gosh, I don’t know. Way before I started working for Beth.

  Q: So the business must be successful?

  A: Actually, no, I don’t think so. Martin’s always asking for more money.

  Q: Why would a smart businesswoman like Ms. Lindstrom continue to invest in a failing business?

  A: I don’t really know. All I know is that Beth said she’d do anything for Martin. That she owes him a lot.

  beth

  seventeen

  Christmas has come and gone, but my cube is still decorated with the cards and photos that Hannah sent me as part of her “Twelve Days of Christmas” theme.

  My favorite is the photo of Claire and her ballet class as nine ladies dancing. They’re all wearing matching pink leotards and fluffy tutus. I’m happy to see Claire seems to be growing out of her awkward chubby phase.

  It’s boring in prison. I peruse the stack of reading material piled up on my footlocker. Also part of Hannah’s “Twelve Days of Christmas” campaign. The only gifts the BOP allows from the outside are books and magazines, so Hannah’s always ordering me stuff she thinks I’d like.

  Honestly, I’m not much of a reader. Never have been. I let the other gals in the unit have their pick of my stuff. One of my patented methods of winning friends and influencing people.

  “Hey, Lindstrom,” Deb calls into my cube. “Ya comin’ to dinner?”

  I glance at my brand-new Fitbit. My Christmas gift to myself. Commissary only had a few in stock, but I asked Sandy to set one aside for me.

  It’s not even five o’clock. I still can’t get used to having dinner so early. Some nights, like when they’re serving overcooked spaghetti noodles in soy sauce that they try to pawn off as chow mein, I don’t even bother to eat. Most nights, though, I make the trek as much to kill time than anything else.

  “You know what they’re serving tonight?” I ask.

  “How could you forget?” Deb asks. “It’s pizza night.”

  Pizza night. One of the highlights of the Alderson social season.

  I jump off my top bunk and walk with Deb from A Building to CDR.

  Central Dining Room is about a five-minute walk from the living units. When we arrive, there’s already a long line.

  Of course. It’s pizza night.

  “I don’t think I’m up for this,” I say to Deb.

  Deb struts to the front of the line and glares at the inmate.

  “Thanks for saving me a spot,” she tells the unsuspecting victim.

  Most people at Alderson wouldn’t get away with such a ballsy move, but Deb’s not most people. Since Meatloaf Mary died, everyone’s more afraid of Deb than ever. Even the COs are scared to give her grief.

  Deb seems to revel in her growing notoriety.

  “Lindstrom, whatcha waitin’ for?” she calls to me.

  I walk past the pairs of glaring eyes and join Deb. I know what everyone thinks: that I’m Deb’s new girlfriend. Her Sugar substitute. But it’s not true. I’ve managed to hold her off so far. I have to be careful, though. No one likes a cocktease.

  “Yo, chicas!” Juanita calls from behind the service line. She’s got her thick black hair trapped inside a white mesh net, but she still manages to look stunning. Her smile could light up a stadium.

  Juanita gives Deb and me a wink as she grabs a couple double slices and puts them on our trays. The girl next to her doles out a scoop of greenish-gray string beans.

  Deb and I have our pick of seats in the dining room. We grab a couple cartons of apple juice and utensils before sitting down at a table by the window.

  “You and Flores seem tight,” Deb says.

  “Yeah, she’s an awesome bunkie,” I reply. “I lucked out.”

  “That’s how me and Sugar got started. Just bunkies.”

  “Well, that’s all we are,” I say.

  “Maybe you’ll change your minds.”

  “I don’t think so. She’s not my type.”

  Deb grunts as she digs into the slice of pizza on her tray. The gal really knows how to pack it away. I take the double slice off my tray and place it on hers.

  “Italian food doesn’t agree with me,” I say.

  I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Italian food. It started over twenty years ago, the summer after I graduated from high school. It was a soft summer evening in Rome’s Trastevere district. Locals and tourists sat elbow to elbow in the romantic cafés that line the Piazza.

  Even though it’s my first time visiting Europe, I can identify the American tourists right away: they’re the fat ones wearing tacky Colosseum T-shirts and gorging themselves on pizzas and pasta at five o’clock. Europeans won’t be dining for at least another few hours.

  My brother, Martin, is hungry and tired from a long day of sightseeing. He begs to go somewhere less busy, but I ignore him. Let’s Go Europe says this is the place to be, and I refuse to leave the center of action just to satisfy my brother’s animal urges.

  I stroll around the Piazza looking for the coolest-looking café and settle on a place called Rossetti’s. I ask the waitress if there’s a waiting list, and she acts like she doesn’t understand me. I haven’t met a single goddamn Italian who speaks English. She points at the tables on the patio as if to say, “Good luck—it’s every man for himself.”

  I check out the scene to see if anyone’s likely to abandon their spot.

  My pulse quickens when an elegant woman gets up as if to leave. The metal legs of her chair sound like fingernails on a blackboard as they scrape against the ancient cobblestones. But her male companion stays behind, and soon she returns with a fresh coat of scarlet lipstick. The man raises his fingers, and the waitress replaces their empty glasses with full ones.

  “Fuck this,” Martin grunts, “let’s get out of here, Beth. I’m starving.”

  Martin’s been a pain in the ass for most of the trip.

  I know Martin’s going through a tough time. He had to quit Dartmouth a semester shy of graduation when Papa refused to pay his tuition. He used his frat contacts to land a series of jobs on Wall Street but got fired from them all. Now Martin’s unemployed, nearly homeless and twenty pounds overweight from a diet of fast food and beer.

  I thought a trip to Europe would lift his spirits, but I was wrong. It just seemed to make him miss the comforts of home, even if the comforts consisted of nothing more than a stained twin-size futon and a four-foot tower of empty pizza boxes.

  “Beth,” Martin repeats, “I said let’s get out of here.”

  I notice a sad-eyed man looking straight at me. He’s sitting by himself, a nearly full glass of beer in front of him. When our eyes lock, he smiles and cocks his head to join him. I reach for Martin’s arm to signal that we’re together. The man smiles more broadly as if to indicate, “Yes, both of you are welcome.”

  Martin and I join the sad-eyed man, who seems as grateful for company as we are for seats. The waitress saunters over, and I try to sound casual as I order a negroni.

  “A negron
i?” Martin asks. I want to wipe the smirk off his snarky face.

  I’m barely eighteen and don’t have much experience with alcohol other than the occasional glass of wine at Christmas dinner. When my high school girlfriends and I manage to sneak into a bar and not get carded, my drink of choice is rum and Diet Coke.

  “Hey, when in Rome,” I say.

  Martin orders a pizza and beer. I feel so lucky to have snagged a table that I don’t give him a hard time for his American eating habits.

  The sad-eyed man introduces himself as Paulo, a businessman from Brazil. His English isn’t great but it’s better than my Portuguese, which is nonexistent. I don’t even speak Spanish.

  “I can tell by the way you look at each other that you are young lovers, no?” Paulo says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You are young lovers, no? On your honeymoon?”

  Martin lets out a quick laugh and then drapes his arm along the back of my chair. He looks soulfully into my eyes and says in a faux Spanish accent, “Oh yes, we are young lovers. Young lovers on our honeymoon.”

  Paulo nods, proud of his powers of observation.

  “Oh no,” I say, swatting Martin’s arm off the back of my chair. “We’re not...what you think. He’s my brother. I’m his sister.”

  Paulo looks at me, then Martin, then me again. We all have a good laugh.

  Martin’s pizza arrives, and he digs in.

  “Beth, you should eat,” he mumbles with his mouth full.

  Instead, Paulo and I order another round of drinks. As the evening wears on, Martin orders more food, and Paulo and I order more drinks.

  “Beth, it’s late,” Martin finally announces, patting his stomach. I notice his gut hanging over his shorts and feel ashamed for him. “I’m ready to go to bed.”

  “You go ahead,” I say. “It’s our last night in Rome, and I want to spend a little more time enjoying it.”

  Martin is unsure. He wants to leave but doesn’t want to leave me.

  Paulo smiles warmly. “Don’t worry, my friend,” he says, “I have a younger sister, too. I will take care of her like a brother.”

  Martin heads back to the hotel, and Paulo and I hang out for another hour. I tell him about living in New York and my plans to attend Barnard in the fall; he tells me about his hometown of Rio and all the beautiful women who live there.

  It’s almost midnight when I start to get sleepy. Martin and I got up early to see the sights, and now I can barely keep my eyes open.

  “I think I better go now,” I say, and Paulo nods. He summons the waitress, who brings us the bill. Shit, those drinks really add up.

  I pull out the Amex that Papa gave me for emergencies, decline Paulo’s half-hearted offer to pay for his beers and hope that Papa won’t get the statement until after I’ve left for college.

  Paulo offers to pay the tip, and I gladly accept. He pulls a well-worn and crumpled note from his pants pocket and leaves it on the table. I can’t see how much it is, but as we leave, the waitress looks disgusted picking it up.

  Paulo and I are silent as we make our way toward my hotel. Away from the bright, buzzy atmosphere of the café, we seem to have nothing to say to one another.

  I stumble as my shoe gets stuck in a crack in the cobblestones, and Paulo catches me in his beefy arms. Paulo crouches down to pull my shoe from the crevice and place it back on my foot. He looks up and smiles as if to reassure me, but his eyes don’t meet mine.

  He’s looking up my skirt.

  Paulo offers his arm, and I reluctantly accept. The negronis have kicked in, and I’ve completely lost my sense of balance. As we keep walking, I see the sign for a gelato shop—the same gelato shop we’ve already passed twice—and I realize I’ve also lost my sense of direction.

  Paulo seems to sense my confusion.

  “You are lost?” he asks.

  “No, not lost,” I say, “just a little turned around.”

  We turn onto a quiet side street, and Paulo grabs me by the waist. He takes a step closer to me, and I instinctively take a step away. It’s like we’re doing the tango, but Paulo won’t stop advancing until my back is literally up against the cool stucco wall of a closed souvenir shop.

  Paulo kisses me so deeply that I nearly gag, but I don’t want to do anything that would make him angry. I moan softly, pretending to appreciate his affections. Encouraged by my response, Paulo shoves his hand up my skirt, his fingers into my crotch.

  “No,” I yell, pushing his hand away.

  “Your mouth says no,” Paulo hisses, “but your cona says yes.” He puts his fingers into my mouth, chuckles at my surprise and then sticks them back up my pussy.

  Paulo starts kissing me again, his hot breath reeking of stale beer and cigarette smoke, the thrusting of his grotesque tongue keeping rough rhythm with the thrusting of his fat fingers.

  A year later, my girlfriends and I will be sitting in the Barnard Women’s Health Center with a dog-eared copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, inspecting our vaginas with a handheld mirror and tasting our own fluids in a radical act of self-empowerment.

  But on that steamy night in Rome, all I can taste is humiliation.

  Paulo’s weight is heavy against me, and I realize I’m trapped. I have a flashback to the poor frog that I did such a pathetic job of dissecting in high school biology class, its tender skin peeled away and pinned to the wax tray, revealing its delicate vital parts.

  “Get your hands off my sister, you asshole!”

  Martin appears out of nowhere, pulls Paulo off me and pushes him to the ground.

  “Are you okay?” Martin asks.

  I nod but break into tears. Martin draws me close and holds me tight. I’ve never loved anyone more.

  “Shush,” he says, “I’m here now.”

  Paulo suddenly stands up and punches Martin. Once, twice, three times. Martin falls to his knees and then to the ground, blood streaming from his face onto the cold, hard cobblestones.

  Paulo looks at me, then at Martin, spits at us both and says, “Fuck you, you fucking Americans.” Then he kicks Martin twice in the stomach for good measure.

  Martin and I spend the rest of the night at the Rome American Hospital waiting for the doctors to stitch up his right eye and confirm that he doesn’t have any broken ribs. In the years ahead, countless women will admire the tough sexiness of his broken nose, but I’ll forever be reminded that it’s my fault.

  That night in the Piazza wasn’t the first time Martin came to my rescue and paid a hefty personal price. As I sat there in the hospital feeling the warm blood oozing from my crotch and running down my leg, I made a vow to myself.

  It would absolutely be the last.

  hannah

  eighteen

  Two weeks straight is a long time to spend with the Lindstroms. Christmas was just a week ago but already seems like a distant memory. Outside, the snow-covered recycling bin is overflowing with empty wine and vodka bottles. Even the kids seem hungover from too much soda and video games.

  The Lindstroms are not the warmest of families, but Eva and Karen at least make an effort to make polite conversation with me, to invite me to their girls’ birthdays and other family gatherings. Beth’s brother, Martin, on the other hand, has spoken fewer than a hundred words to me in the many years we’ve known one another—maybe a thousand if you count cocktail orders. Martin always struck me as a male chauvinist, a guy’s guy, someone who’s most comfortable in the company of his Dartmouth frat brothers or business colleagues than anyone of the opposite sex, including his own wife and daughters. Given this history, I’m surprised when Martin invites me to have lunch with him on New Year’s Eve. “A time to talk, just the two of us,” he says.

  “Wow, this place looks lovely,” I say as we pull up to a country French restaurant just outside St. Michaels. “How in the world did you find it?”<
br />
  “The senior senator from Maryland loves their food,” Martin says. “He’s chair of the appropriations committee, so I come here all the time. It’s not great for my cholesterol levels but what can you do? Occupational hazard of the job.”

  The exuberant chef/owner personally greets Martin at the restaurant entrance and shows us to Martin’s usual table by the geranium-bedecked windows.

  “And what is it that you do, exactly?” I ask. Sam once described Martin as one of those people responsible for those solid gold military toilet seats you read about in the paper from time to time, but I never understood what that meant.

  “I’m the chief customer officer at EMC Partners.”

  “And what does EMC Partners do?”

  “EMC is one of the leading strategic sourcing companies in the Mid-Atlantic. We work with Fortune 500 companies to leverage their competitive advantages in price and quality while moving the needle on critical supplier diversity goals.”

  This all sounds like marketing gobbledygook to me. We pause our conversation as the waitress pours a splash of wine into Martin’s glass. Martin take a sip, swishes it thoughtfully in his mouth and nods. I place my hand over the rim and shake my head when the waitress attempts to pour some wine into my glass.

  “Oh, come on, Hannah, loosen up,” Martin says. He reaches over to remove my hand from the glass. “For my sake. I hate to drink alone.” Martin looks at me warmly, the corners of his eyes crinkling just so. My cheeks radiate heat as I compliantly nod. The waitress deftly pours me a glass.

  “To the family. And to us. Cheers,” Martin says, lifting his glass for a toast.

  “Cheers,” I reply, hoping the wine won’t go to my head.

  After the salad plates have been cleared, Martin confides, “Hannah, I wanted us to have lunch so we could talk about Sam. I’m worried about him.” Martin’s words are as surprising as they are comforting. Perhaps it’s the wine, but sitting so close together, it becomes apparent to me how Martin was able to attract a lovely woman like Karen. He’s wearing a fine-gauge cotton sweater in a shade of cornflower blue that matches his eyes. He smells clean but masculine like he just showered with a bar of Irish Spring. There’s a slight bump in the middle of his nose from when he broke it—a boxing injury perhaps—which is oddly sexy in its tough imperfection.