“Just had to make sure you got to your friend’s.”
I boldly go where no Ari has gone before and tuck between his knees. His hands span my waist, forehead nuzzling my velvet-covered belly. Over my bottom, down my legs, his hands slide. Longing shoots up my thighs. He looks up. “Ari . . . I . . . I should go.” He stands, stepping onto the ground and I help myself to a hug, wondering if velvet under a man’s hand is like touching the veil between heaven and earth. “I, I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Why’re you sorry?”
“I’m crossing a line.”
“Because you were once my teacher?” He nods. I chase his eyes. “It’s a chalk line, Aaron, not a permanent one. That isn’t the line separating us now.”
“Then what is? Jake?”
“You’re a wind heading southwest and I’m a nor’easter.”
“They can’t mix?”
“Nor’easters really mess things up. You might think you want no boundaries, but the unsettling will shake you to your core.” I release him, backing away. “Go sleep. You have work tomorrow.”
“Um, your birthday falls on a Sunday. Can I take you somewhere special?”
“Depends. Am I an ex-pupil or a friend?”
“Friend. You, Ari, are my best friend.”
“Then I’d like that.”
“Will you wear that dress?”
I nod, smiling until I’m locked inside.
The kettle boils as I shower. A confusion of scents peel away: Mummy reeking of Chantilly. Daddy’s Old Spice on his hands as he held my head right where he wanted it. Memories slip down the drain. I miss Jake’s quiet scent, Jasper.
I climb into my clean bed, naked, mould into the pillows with my unfinished letter to Jake, and reread the pleadings.
There’s no logic to your thinking. Do you believe I’m destined to become an addict? A child abuser? What about Mikey? Is he doomed to become the Dick? Did you ever once think that Danny deserved his father’s unkindness? You tried so hard to cut away the tangle of lies that caught him up. Why can’t you show yourself the same mercy?
I crumple the page and begin again.
Spring woke me this morning. A single crocus under my step poked out the palest mauve face through a crinoline of sun-missed snow. I went to school with muddy knees because it needed a sniff, that lovely whiff of spring. Not fruit or sugar sweet, just a hint of green. In every class I opened windows for more. Ellis has a terrible cold. He said he was embracing the respite from wet wool and the stench of sneakers.
I get that joy in absence, a rest from the assault. This evening saturated me in smells, all a bit dizzying. Somewhere, right now, music is playing, smoky jazz and heated blues. An emerald-dressed woman drenched in Ma Griffe is circling the dance floor with an American drowning in Jade East—olfactory offenders in a gangster’s lair.
This day is long overdue its ending, but I need time to desaturate. Jennah’s dress is suspended like a stranger by my open window, with it hangs the hope that a night wind will snatch the confusing tangle of Chanel, Aramis—chalk, too—and get it out of my nest.
The float of peppermint tea and the quiet knock of the clock letting me know I have this moment is spectacular, rendering me gratefully senseless. Inhale and dream, Jake. Your Ari.
I pull the brass chain. The nest goes black, warming to pewter as I settle under the featherbed. Radio from downstairs leaks in, “Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away . . .” Jake is with me as my hand slips over my breast, circling my belly before exploring. Jennah’s dress flutters and I close my eyes, letting Tino’s hands move to the places he’d wanted. We climb, muscles tensing, then it’s Aaron’s weight on me, his lips kissing my neck as my head arches back, moans mingling with the distant music, “Once I get you up there where the air is rarified, we’ll just glide starry-eyed . . .”
I turn, hug my pillow. Stop messing with me, Jasper. I’ll only ever love Jake.
The phone slaps me out of fitful sleep. “Hello?”
“Hey, dolly,” Huey says, “just wanted to catch you before school.” I blink my clock into focus, seven fifty. “Had to tell you, Jake’s going back to rehab.”
“When?”
“They’s got a spot for him a week Monday.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“He’s out walking the shore. He tolds me not to tell you, but givin’ good news is only fair after all the hard things.”
“Oh, Huey, you’ve made my day.”
I seize the clay of this Friday: go to school, make a list, then a sublist, using my spare and lunch to get things done. I hide in the back corner. Food is not allowed in the school library, so I get a little misty-eyed when Miss Gulliver quietly places a Tupperware bowl of homemade rice pudding on my worktable. “I always find this goes down easy. I make it with almond milk.”
“Thank you.” I refocus on my assignment. Jasper, I must look like death.
Just a little chartreuse around the gills. Hey, I never knew almonds had teats.
After school I wrap and post my belated Christmas gift to Jake, the painting, U of Us, with a note: For our place. We’ll find a new cozy space.
Oh, Ari. Is the poetry coming back?
It might just be.
* * *
At work Bernie calls me into his office. “How was last night?”
“I have a lot of rescuers, but Tino might be my best ally yet. Thanks for chaperoning.”
“What? Just wanted a good meal.” He hands me a velvet box containing a thin string of sapphires.
“Whoa, Tino sure has good taste. Can you keep it in your safe until I can return it?”
“Sure thing, doll.”
“Men sure are complicated creatures.”
“Naw, we’re just stupid.”
“You’re one of the smartest people I know.”
“Back to work. I don’t pay you to stand around gabbing.”
“A lot of the time you do.”
* * *
Saturday, I return the necklace. Tino smooths his grease-slick hair. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s exquisite, but I can’t accept.”
“No strings. I just want you to have it.”
“But then you wouldn’t know I had a nice time without you having to give me anything. Give it to your wife.”
“Not got enough shebang for her.”
“Well, it’s got too much shebang for this down-home girl.”
“What do down-home girl’s like?”
“This one just wants to unload the friggin’ eight pennies in her pocket and go home.”
“Not sure how that’s done, but Bernie says you’re pinned down with Irwin’s kid. Why ain’t he with the mother?”
“When he was small, CAS seized him a half dozen times. Courts decided the Dick was the better parent. She tries but she’s as dependable as a candle in a windstorm.”
“How ’bout I just off Irwin?”
“Tempting, but corpses, even rotten ones, are heavy to schlep around. The Dick’s scared of you. If you insisted, I wager he’d sign an iron-clad custody agreement.”
“If I did, might I get another dance?”
“I’d give you another just because we had fun.”
“You’re an interesting human specimen, kitten.”
“Likewise, Tino Constantine.”
“First name’s Theo.”
“Suits you.”
He walks me to the door, hesitating before opening it. “Irwin ever hit you?”
“You don’t have to fight that battle for me.”
One finger traces the old scar over my eyebrow without touching it.
“A whack with an andiron and it’s pretty much the only connection my mum and I ever had.”
Forty-Nine
Monday, I return to crapdom to find Shirley and the D
ick hoisting Todd up the stairs, like Laurel and Hardy moving the piano.
“Heard you showed Tino a really good time.” The Dick’s fat nose shines redder than usual and the pores on his face are so big fruit flies could breed in them, and a few likely do. “So, when you goin’ out again?”
“Meeting for drinks tonight.”
“Good show.”
I check on Todd. “You okay?”
“I’m good. Wish they coulda put on the walking cast, though.”
“When will they?”
“Next week. Hey, you seen O’Toole around?”
“No. We’ve been at Sabina’s. Heard he’s on the lam.”
“Halpern came to hospital with a shitload of questions. O’Toole’s going down.”
“And the Dick?”
“Hard to say.”
“Um, I have to run a few errands. What can I get you?”
“Piss bottle?”
“Right. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
I meet with Laura. In return for signing custody papers, she asks not for money but mercy. “Ari, I heard O’Toole’s in hot water. Don’t give police anything on Dick. Promise. For Mikey’s sake. I know what it’s like to have a daddy in jail.”
I’ll take freedom at any price. “Sure. Fine.”
I place an order at Smitty’s Appliances, buy comic books, snacks, and a bed table at Woolworths. On my return to crapdom, the Dick gives me a once over. “For Christ sake, fix yourself up before you go out.”
“Roger that. Can I borrow your thermos?”
“Long as you don’t spit in it.”
I nab pillows from Ronnie’s room, tuck them under Todd’s leg, then fill the cooler with snacks. “I have to go on a pretend date.” I place the Dick’s thermos on the nightstand. “Piss in this.”
“You coming back?”
“Late. Can you manage?”
“No prob. Pass me my pills?”
“Does it still hurt?”
“Not much. They just help me sleep.”
* * *
Three a.m. I leave the nest. My hair is washed and tamed. I teeter between classy and sexy in a black camisole and leather jacket. I have eight tasks ticked off my list, best of which is my creative writing assignment: “Becoming Unthinkable.” When entering crapdom, the Dick wakes in the chair and I wonder if this is what it feels like to have parents who give a shit. “Good time?”
“A real blast.”
* * *
After school, Tuesday, Todd says, “Ari, I’m going crazy in here. Help me downstairs.”
“If there was a bathroom, I would. I’ll be back in a shake with something that’ll help.”
I take Mikey’s wagon to Smitty’s Appliances. “Afternoon, Ari. It’s all set. All you have to do is plug her in.”
“I brought the wagon.”
“Nonsense, delivery truck’s heading out.” His son emerges from the back with a Zenith Chromacolour portable TV. “Set it up for her, too, Norm, there’s a good lad.”
A flame creeps up Norm’s neck, igniting on his cheeks, when I say, “Thanks.” A nod is the most conversation he can muster as we drive to crapdom. He hoists the TV out of the back and follows me up the stairs.
Todd’s voice wobbles as Norm sets the TV on its stand. “Ari, what’d you do?”
“She’s your very own. Happy birthday, merry Christmas, Easter tidings, and get well soon. Mikey, help Todd eat, then get your homework done.” He gives a thumbs-up but is already lost in the blue light.
I ask Norm, “Can you drop me at Maitland Street?”
He nods, or maybe he’s just shaking.
At the door the Dick nabs my braid. “Where’re you going?”
“Out.” Nosing up to him, I spit. “You ever touch my hair again and I’ll have Tino’s barber scalp you. We clear?” He releases.
Norm eases his grip on the steering wheel as we near Maitland and the terror of having a girl in his truck comes to an end. “Night. Thanks.”
Todd’s boss, Dr. McKay, keeps his clinic in an old house. He peeks out of a room when the bell clatters. “Ari, good, come lend a hand.”
In the little treatment room, a dizzy man regroups on a chair while I stroke a stressed boxer. “It’s okay, you lovely soul. The doc will have that leg fixed up right quick.”
He stitches, bandages, then lifts the dog down. “There you go, laddie. Stay away from sharp fences now.” He settles the bill and says, “Hope you’ve come to tell me Todd will soon be back.”
“He gets a walking cast next week. Um, I know sometimes Todd sleeps here when critters need watching. If I could set up a room upstairs for him, you’d have a built-in night shift in return for lodgings.”
“Would Todd agree to this?”
“There’s no place he’d be happier.”
Dr. McKay takes two steps at a time to a room loaded with cartons and a small cot. “I save the boxes for take-home beds. Folded down they’d fit in the storeroom. There’s a kitchen downstairs.”
“That a yes?”
“Get him back here soon.”
Fifty
What does it say about Dick Irwin’s pathetic life when I’m the best next of kin Halpern can find? I call Constantine after getting the news that the Dick took a beating. “Tino? What the hell? He would’ve signed the agreement.”
“Got nothing to do with me, kitten. Swear on my sainted mother.”
“Then who?”
“The guys lookin’ for O’Toole. Listen, when Halpern hauls you in, you heard nothin’, saw nothin’, know nothin’. These guys don’t mess around.”
“Oh, please just get me away from this friggin’ shit!”
“Did Laura sign?”
“Yes.”
“Meet me at the hospital at noon.”
Thugs really do break kneecaps. An overhead bar hammocks the Dick’s right leg. When he sees me, growls escape his wired jaw. “I’n ’oing to keel you, you ’ucking cunt.”
I turn to Tino. “Did he say he’s going canoeing?”
“Goin’ up the river, Irwin?”
“’ucking ’astard, ’e had a ’eal.”
“I always honour my deals. You know who eats canaries? Snakes. That’s who. Now, here’s the new deal. You’re going to sign these papers and I’m gonna put the word out that you’d never sing. O’Toole takes the heat on both sides.” Tino shoves a pen in the Dick’s hand and holds the custody agreement taut. “Sign here, here and here.”
“’crew you.”
Tino leans on the rail. “Irwin, you notice that the only thing on your miserable person not incapacitated is your right hand? Things are that way so, one, you can fuck yourself, and two, sign these papers. I strongly recommend it for your health.”
It’s done, easily done.
* * *
Mina finds me sitting on crapdom’s stoop, reading the mail. “Anything good?”
“Did you know Jake’s going back to rehab?”
“He talked to Ellis after your mum’s funeral. It’s a good step, but Ellis thinks he’s doing it for you, not for himself.”
“If it gets him moving, I’ll happily be his motivation. He so needs to exorcise his dad’s meanness.”
“It’s his mother leaving him behind that gets me.” Mina rights the house number. The 7 falls back down, numbering crapdom “LO.” “How does a kid process being deliberately left in hell?”
“He excuses her. Says his sisters were all her arms could carry. But he was forever waiting for her to come back for him. I want Jake to clean out the mess, but I’m scared he might get so lost he’ll disappear, like June.”
“The greater risk is him never finding his true life because people held him together.”
“Have you found yours?”
“For the most part. Really it’s a journey, with right t
urns, wrong paths, backtracking, rerouting, redeeming.” She tips my envelope and checks the sender.
“Auntie Dolores has been sending me Appleton slices.”
“Any revelations?”
“She says under my dad’s shine was the most splintered person imaginable. Unbordered in his emotions. When I wasn’t the longed-for son, he smashed his new car with a tire iron. Barely acknowledged Mum’s existence after. No wonder she hated me so much.”
“Both of them were selfish idiots for not loving the gift of a child.”
“Dolores says Mummy had brains, beauty, talent, but whenever she made a right turn she’d back up, fast as lightening, to find the wrong one. At sixteen she packed a bag with Auntie Elsie’s best clothes and ran off with my dad. He was twice her age.” A bee, reanimating in a sun-warmed spot, butts against the peeling rail. “How’d you figure same seeds and growing conditions produced Dolores, Elsie, Mary, and Mum?”
“What’s that saying? ‘Same sun that melts wax hardens clay.’ Those who are amazed at it all become. The blind pitch what they’ve got.”
A lady pushing a stroller along the sidewalk bristles as her toddler tucks to examine ants. “Kurt, I swear, if you don’t listen to Mummy, I’ll . . . Move it, now. One. Two. Thr—”
“Seven, nine, twelve.” He springs up, bopping forward like a kangaroo.
I half smile. “I’m sorry you never had kids.”
She folds onto the step. “It used to feel more bitter than sweet but it’s brought us to a good place, right for Ellis and me, a jitter of possibilities.”
My arm weaves through Mina’s. “Half of Jarvis call you Mum and Dad, you know.”
“Yeah, we have some pretty spectacular kids.”
“I never knew Auntie Dolores had four miscarriages or how hard it was for her that Mum reproduced easier than bacteria. Mum used to parade us in front of her, ‘Aren’t they the most beautiful jewels.’ I’m no closer to understanding Mum, but I get my aunt better. I’m glad she has Jillianne.”
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