Swell Page 8

  “Vice! You think Bibi is fixing to clean Rose out?”

  “No! Rose has got—”

  “What?”

  Tim’s stuck. He can’t mention the gun—duh!—without mentioning the murder, without…“Never mind. That old loon just annoys me.”

  But it’s his friends (friends?) who are really annoying him. They aren’t listening to Tim at all, Chris D. being too busy slobbering over Bibi, and Bean—well, hasn’t Bean coughed here enough today? Tim will never seem sensible to the Glassmans with these clowns hanging around, so how will he be able to warn them that there’s a deranged woman sitting in their kitchen? “I really need to get rid of Rose, pronto.”

  Chris D. grins. “Get Bibi all to yourself? Good move. How about we toss Rose into that bonfire?” This a reference to the latest teen rager on the beach. Nostalgically, they’ve decided to keep an eye on it rather than shutting it down. “The real deal would be even better. Come back to work and on the next five-alarm—”

  “Lame try.”

  “Seriously, Butter, we need you. Peewee’s weak mid-hose.”

  At mid-hose (Tim’s station), you can feel the water pounding beneath your hands, through the line, through your thick gloves. Let go, and the rush of liquid or the hose itself can easily knock you flat. For Tim, that made it so hard not to let go.

  “Eskimos push their old folks out to sea,” Bean says and all three separately picture the wheelchair floating.

  To erase this image, Tim throws in, “Poison.” Earlier, Rose said the rhododendron fence was toxic and a laxative. “Death by diarrhea. But if you think that’s freaky…”

  Tim relates the strange way Rose referenced his mother wanting to keep the Impoliteris away, God knows why. “And God must know, since my mom manages to fit Him into every conversation.” Praise Him, she’d probably say if asked about Rose now. Have charity. Vincent Impoliteri was not a kind husband. But it’s easy to be loving when you no longer live next door. The most gleeful Tim had ever seen his mom was one night long ago when they watched Rose drag her table leaves down to the sand to burn. “Hell is a lake of fire,” his mother said, and she laughed. She could not stop laughing.

  Competitive gardening was the one bond between the two women. That is, Rose bragged her garden was superior, and his mom agreed. The meek shall inherit. “But come to think of it,” Tim says, “they did have an uncanny lot in common. Same church, same lawn, one son apiece.”

  On the word son, everyone gets quiet, thinking back to Peg’s kid during tonight’s widow visits. Ryan’s booger-smeared face when he came down from his nap looked so much like his father’s that Peg herself said, “His son, his twin,” meaning, of course, Chowder.

  “Why are they called twins anyway?” the boy had asked. “If one of the towers is bigger?”

  “Were they called towers, ditwit,” said the older sister, Bridget, obviously sick of the topic. She flung her mom’s park ranger hat.

  Peg reached out and easily caught the Stetson. (All-state in softball and basketball and swimming.) She was pissed at the guys for showing up without the respirator masks she’d requested twice. Like, what’s so difficult? She already had to score the Cipro for anthrax from some high-school kid. “You guys are beyond pathetic.”

  Which is when Tim clutched her unwashed blondish ponytail. Told her: Cut the shit. Time to stop playing survivalist and hold the long-delayed paddle-out for her dead husband. Of course, Chowder had already had a church memorial. But a lost surfer is owed a floating ceremony as well. Chowder would bust Tim’s balls if he knew how long they’d lagged. “This weekend,” Tim hissed into Peg’s ear. “Say you’ll do it this weekend.”

  “Let go of her!” Bean said, stumbling on a box of dehydrated apples en route to rescue Peg. “Let her be! She’s busy preparing for what’s next.”

  “She’s busy acting mental!” Tim shouted, though he was clearly the one who was acting, acting like he wasn’t falling for her, a girl he’d known since nursery school! “What’s next should be Chowder’s paddle-out. It’s been nine fucking months!”

  “Let her go,” Bean repeated.

  And all the while, Peg was breathing into Tim’s neck. “No, don’t let go. I like it. Harder.”

  It’s terrifying how sexy grief makes her. Peg now seems an altogether different tomboy from the one he’d always known. Only her kids—the fact of them—keep him halfway contained.

  And even more frightening is that Tim can’t recall the last time he saw Chowder. No surprise, Mark No Name blames substances. Whole swatches of memory evaporated along with the stale bong water. Nothing but reek left. Could this also be why Tim had never once considered the strangely hostile dynamic between Rose and his mom?

  “Hell, no.” Bean coughs, standing up from his Adirondack chair—to exit? Tim can only hope. “You were just too busy obsessing. Bugs and Alex, it used to be. Now it’s flowers, the Glassmans, and Peg. Same diff. Face it, Butter, you’re OCD-fucking-oblivious!”

  This had the sickening sound of truth to it. “Oblivious?”

  “That you need to come back to work, man.”

  Bugs still interest me, Tim’s about to say when he spots June and her red backpack slipping through the beach door. Minutes later, Kenny Mole-Kacy materializes, following. “Maybe it’s time to break up that party,” Tim says instead.

  Rose is turning him into a busybody neighbor, the kind of butt-sniffer he could never bear. Another look into the Glassman kitchen window reveals Sue entering the room from the hall. She freezes, a bakery bag clutched to her chest. In the foreground, at the table, Rose, with a napkin draped over her hair, bends over the Sabbath candles. Two candles, Tim thinks longingly, like two melting towers, each week resurrected anew.

  * * *

  Rose knows all the words. Baruch atah Adonai…She knows to cover her head and the circling motion to make with your palms. Doing so, her hands tremble, as if she’s resisting an urge to pass through the flame. Even more jolting to Sue is that Dan’s the one on his knees by the wheelchair holding up the candles for her. The prayer competes with Sy’s little TV, now propped up on the meat freezer; bottom of the third, no score, man on first. Sy has the whole braided challah held vertically between his hands. His sepia eyes dart from game to Rose and back again. The old woman seems to know all those words too. “Swing and a miss!” “Stuck it in his ear!” Spaghetti has materialized on the table, some kind of olive sauce in a bowl unfamiliar to Sue. Also, a box of assorted Band-Aids. Between Sage and the empty space for Ed sits Bibi, probing a blister on her heel with a car key. In the face of this strange tableau, Sue can see only one option. Sing. Sing the prayer.

  Automatically, this relaxes her. Her shoulders drop; her spine aligns. It’s a trick she discovered early on to block out her warring parents. Sing in bed, in the bathtub, out in the hall when necessary. And the prayer melody’s in her head, after all! Sue always gets a melody! The rush of air pressing up from her diaphragm even calms the baby. She feels as if she’s breathing sound. When it’s over, she’s left with a familiar raw ache, like hunger.

  “Ah-mein,” Sy says, picking up the kiddush cup.

  Then the blessing over the wine, over the bread, every word of which Rose knows too. Turns out she was a Friday-night regular at the home of her Jewish friends the Baums until Bob Baum stabbed her “in the neck.” Saying his name, Rose’s lips contort as if tasting something heinous.

  “Whoa, back up,” Sue says. “Bob Baum? Is that our Bob Baum?” Sy’s business associate/golf buddy/best friend. It has to be. Bob lives only a few blocks over. It was he who first told Sy about the house.

  “Small world.” Sy nods at the screen. “Let’s eat.”

  Dan rushes to the oven to remove a pan of sliced brisket he’s been warming. The room fills with the enticing and repulsive smell of beef.

  “I know what food is,” Sage says. “Dead animals.” But she eagerly holds out two plates.

  “Bob and my daughter-in-law were in cahoots from the get-go
,” Rose insists. “They said the house was in dire need of repair, that it was hazardous, which I guess it was—” She scans the peeling walls of the corner room. “Is.”

  They told Rose not to worry, Maureen and Bob did. Her move to Forest Hills was temporary. For her safety. They’d take care of everything. All she had to do was sign. On “sign,” Rose slaps the arm of her chair too hard and then grasps her elbow, wincing. “You see what they did there? I thought I was signing a renovations contract! But they sold my house! You see?”

  Sue begins to eat, to gobble, really. Unlike Dan, fluttering sympathetically around Rose, Sue doesn’t automatically buy this sob story. Unlike Bibi, rolling her eyes, Sue doesn’t immediately discount it. She just chews and swallows, calculating the myriad of possibilities and keeping a steady eye on Sy.

  “The way they treat us old people…” Sy tsks, still gazing at the screen.

  “You think I’m some kind of dummy, Glassman?”

  Sy pats Rose’s veiny hand with his own. “Oh, no, no.”

  “Your pal Bob tips you off to a beach house and you never wonder why it’s such a steal?”

  “A fixer-upper. You said yourself—”

  “A swindle and you knew it.”

  “With all due respect,” Sy says, at last turning to Rose. “The place had a certain reputation.” It’s the Murder House, in other words, a detail Sy neglected to tell Dan and Sue.

  “All my stuff’s here,” Rose says, surveying the jam-packed kitchen. “Why would I leave all my stuff if I knew I was moving?”

  Sue had simply assumed there was no room for Rose’s things in assisted living. But Sy’s leg is jiggling. Sue watches Rose watch Sy’s leg jiggling. “So Bob never mentioned me, then?” Rose keeps on. But the fire’s gone. She sounds depressed.

  Sy turns the TV volume down. Clearly it’s dawned on him that he’s got to work a bit harder. “To be honest,” he tells her, “I’m not sure. I mean, it’s embarrassing but—my brain’s still a bit foggy from the chemo.”

  Sue groans. She can’t help it. Sy’s last cancer treatment was in 1987.

  “Cancer?” Rose asks, guardedly sympathetic.

  “Bone,” Sy whispers. “But I’d rather not…I think I need more noodles.” He holds the bowl up to his nose. “What the hell is in this sauce, woman?” Really pouring it on. Wow. You can actually see Rose’s face twitch from her effort to resist him. When Dan chimes in, calling the dish “magic,” Rose is lost.

  “I’ll have you know, I made pasta six days a week for forty years.”

  “And on the seventh day?” Sy prompts.

  Bibi shifts in her seat, bracing herself for the familiar litany. “On a Sunday”—the aide mouths along with Rose’s words—“on a Sunday, I’d serve the antipasti and the pasta, two meats, a vegetable side, salad, dessert—”

  “Oh, now you’re making my stomach growl,” Sy says, theatrically dumping the rest of the spaghetti onto his plate. By this point, it’s too much bullshit even for Bibi. Bouncing the car keys in her palm, she tells Rose, “Time to go home.”

  “I am home.”

  “C’mon, Rosie. You know that’s not right.”

  So Bibi was only humoring Rose with her introduction “The lady’s come home.” Bibi uses the same singsong voice for both Sage and Rose. “If we don’t go now, you’ll miss your program. You don’t want to miss your program.”

  Survivor? CSI: Miami? Kudos to whatever TV show compels Rose to give in; she gives in; she’ll go! If the Glassmans promise to fix up her father’s garden.

  “Done!” Sy claps. “On it! Rose, I owe you a tremendous apology. Had I known the yard was in such disarray…Of course, in my condition, I don’t get out much.”

  Sy in action. Sue’s so disgusted, she momentarily forgets that the uninvited guests are finally leaving. Rose crosses her arms imperiously as she’s wheeled from the room. Ever the gentleman, Dan assists.

  On TV, masses of gulls mill about the outfield, so many they’ve paused the game to try and figure out what to do. Laughing gulls, the announcer explains. “They’re shooting them at Kennedy airport. Maybe the commissioner—”

  “What’s he talking about?”

  “They get sucked into the plane engines,” Sy tells her. “It’s not safe.”

  “You knew about this?”

  “It’s all over the media.”

  Inexplicably, Sue begins to weep.

  Alarmed, Sage runs and hugs her. “Don’t worry, Mommy; it’s just a dream.”

  “You’re not actually blubbering over those birds?” Sy asks.

  “I don’t know,” Sue says. She really doesn’t.

  “Stupid birds, shoo!” Sy says.

  “Shoo! Shoo!” Sage mimics.

  Sue thinks of the blessing over the children. No one remembered to say it, though it had been Estelle’s favorite Shabbat ritual. Still leaking tears, Sue places her palm on her daughter’s warm head. Baby Sage. Any day now she’ll be usurped. June still hasn’t forgiven them for having a second kid. On some level, she never will. As only children who yearned for siblings, Sue and Dan were late to understand. Onlys have their own pressures—Just don’t die on us, we have no backup—but it seems easier than a lifetime of jockeying for position.

  “What’s the blessing over the children again? Sy?”

  “Not now.” He wiggles his fork at the birds on TV.

  “Just tell me—”

  “Shoo!”

  Now Sue’s extra-determined. Still holding on to Sage, she twists her bulk to block the screen.

  “What are you doing? Move!”

  “Mommy—”

  “Tell me the blessing!”

  “Later.”

  Sue snatches the end of Sy’s fork. One shove and she could spear the tines right into his barrel chest. She’s that furious.

  “Mommy, let go—”

  “You don’t give a shit about any of this, do you, Sy? You just want to convert me to…win!”

  A grin percolates across Sy’s grooved face as he considers the accusation, that sparkling word—win. Meanwhile, a TV commercial blares the “Star Spangled Banner.” Buying motor oil is so patriotic.

  “Mommy. You’re hurting me!”

  “My God.” Sue’s been pressing too hard on the poor kid’s head. Parenting strike two (after the fuck you). “Sorry, Sage.”

  “And Ed.”

  “And Ed.”

  Sy’s so entertained. “Before you say the prayer over the children,” he says, laughing outright at Sue, “you might want to locate them all. Uh, where’s June?”

  * * *

  June’s pretending it’s a movie. It feels safer. She’s that girl, the gawky redhead who drops her books but is secretly gorgeous behind glasses once hair products are applied. Maybe she’s cool in her old school, the competitive Stuyvesant, but at Beach Channel High, she’s still a yet-to-be-labeled problem. It’s the kind of movie June and her best friend, Jake Leibowitz, prefer. Not too much thinking required. At the end, there’s redemption. Or at least a makeover.

  The movie opens here, with June standing on a dark, windy outer-borough beach. Acoustic guitar is omnisciently picked. She’s about to throw a message in a bottle. Not the good kind of bottle, June wrote in her daily e-mail to Jake. Not the kind sealed with a cork and black wax—prop budget? If only I knew how to skim a shell, I wouldn’t even need a bottle. I don’t even know what shell’s best for skimming.

  The daily e-mail to Jake is in place of the daily phone call since June caught her mom eavesdropping. Thrice.

  To think of shells as containers where animals once lived can really, really make you tired.

  It’s take number two zillion, so June’s tired. It’s not just shells; no one taught her, a girl, to throw anything. A wave rolls in (city-puddle gray), then folds and breaks. White froth carries the bottle back to her. June kicks the sand in frustration. The camera shot widens. A little ways down the beach, where the boardwalk starts, other teenagers sit by a bonfire. Does June care th
at she’s not there with them? Her wistful expression leaves this open to interpretation.

  And there’s no need for the cheesy voice-over either. Just the fact that those kids can get a fire lit in this beach wind shows the difference between her and them, locals and new June. She’ll bet every one of them can throw a bottle far out to sea, not to mention skip shells, body-surf, differentiate a surf clam from a razor clam. On their scratchy radio, P. Diddy is singing “‘Yeah, c’mon. I need a, I want a…girl’”—further driving home the schism. None of them would ever have a best friend like Jake, a gay hockey player who speaks four languages (one of them of his own invention).

  June will have to break it to Jake soon. Their summer beach/movie plans are nixed. He is not what you’d call a believable character, not here in Rockaway, anyway. If he insists on a role, he’ll have to hide miserably beneath a flannel shirt and board shorts. Then, depending on the focus-group feedback, the story will end with him drowning himself or meeting a merman and living happily ever after.

  Again, June throws the bottle. Waits. Again, it returns. Throw. Wait. Return. It’s like a game of fetch with Blacky, only no joy. If the script were to take a more allegorical route, June could play Blacky, fetching a Frisbee thrown by Tim, petted by him, good girl. Or misbehaving, jerked by her collar, a loving slap, bad, bad girl, naughty girl. Luckily, it’s dark, the quarter moon as cloudy as her dead grandma’s cataract. June removes her backpack and walks up a bit to place it on the dry sand. Maybe she’ll throw better without having to worry about the egg. Maybe if she turns sideways, like boys do, and really concentrates on reaching her achy arm back.

  “Boo!” Kenny Mole-Kacy pounces. His loud windbreaker rustles all around her for the second time today. He’s her neighbor, at her bus stop, in her health class, and now he’s touching his thumb to her cheek, saying he heard “cool news!” They’ll also be in driver’s ed together starting tomorrow. “Don’t look so excited, June.”

  Actually, with his pimples and thinning hair patch erased in the dark, Kenny’s sort of, well, not as hideous as usual. “You know,” June says for something to say, “you shouldn’t carry your egg like that. Loose like that in your pocket.”