And Sons (33 page)

“Me too. But my mother’s a shark.”

They both floated in a congenial radius, half on tiptoes, facing the beach and the club in the distance with its brick terrace and gathering lunch crowd. Polly, arms crossed, posed for a statue called
Impatience
, annoyed yet incapable of leaving Isabel alone. She would make a fabulous stepmother someday.

“I should go,” Isabel said to the boy.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Where-ah, um, where you going?” he asked.

“Lunch with my cousin.”

“Polly Lash is your cousin?”

“Yep. Cut me and she bleeds.” Isabel had no idea what this meant, but the boy again smiled and she thought he seemed nice, a safe introduction to the world of seventeen-year-old boys and what they might think of a fourteen-year-old girl with big feet. For the sake of curiosity and the two cats warring within her stomach, she asked if he wanted to join them.

“For lunch?”

“Only if you want.”

“Um, okay.”

Isabel thought of asking his name, but at this stage it seemed weirdly intimate, plus the moment had passed, and wasn’t it the boy’s job anyway? Instead she rode a small wave in, arms pressed back, shoulders arched, chin cutting through the foam.

Isabel missed swimming in the ocean.

At 2 East 70th Street the day-shift doorman recognized her—“That you, Mrs. Dyer?”—and with a certain amount of pride Isabel remembered his name—“Hello, Felix”—and chatted about family, his four children now all grown, the older two with children themselves, though time unarticulated was the truer subject, Felix following the doorman code and refraining from asking personal questions, but seeing Mrs. Dyer of the sixth floor gave him a passing awareness of the gap between when he was young and when she was old and how it had narrowed to a crack.
In the elevator Isabel counted the floors like beads on the rosary—please God don’t let him be pitiful; deranged; irredeemably senile; muttering some nonsense; incontinent—until the sixth floor lit up and she found herself asking, Why am I even here?

Polly Lash had heard the same question years ago. “Why what?”

“Nothing,” Isabel said with a weary shake of her head.

They were sitting at a table while the boy waited inside for his bacon burger. The Little Place crowd was nearing its peak though most of the adults were heading toward the Big Place with its finer selection of roast turkey and shrimp scampi and other dinner-like meals designed as an excuse for dinner-like drinks.

“Lunch with Charlie Topping of all people,” Polly went on again.

“He seems nice,” Isabel said.

“He’s a lemon. Now his brothers—”

“Just because of his pimples? Have you looked at your forehead lately?”

“That’s a sun rash.”

“Well you have sun rash on your back as well.”

“Are you his ah, um, ah, girl-um-friend, aah, all of a sudden?”

“That’s just mean,” Isabel said.

“All the older boys around here and you pick Charlie Lump.”

“What do you call those blackheads on your nose, a moon rash?”

Polly’s eyes sprouted fangs. “Why don’t you go back home, oh yeah, you can’t.”

Isabel went quiet.

“I didn’t ask you here,” Polly said. “It’s not my fault that your parents are in a state.”

That was the winning blow. Even worse, Isabel wanted to ask Polly what kind of state she meant since the exact nature of her parents’ situation was a mystery, like a magic trick without the magic, but things were definitely disappearing, starting with her brothers, who were spending the summer with relatives on a farm in Washington State. The dog was gone too. Even pieces of the furniture, that small painting by Greuze, were missing. But then Charlie Topping showed up with his bacon burger and a plate of extra bacon, and before sitting
down he said an uncertain hello to Polly just in case she had overturned her cousin’s earlier ruling on lunch.

“Hello, Charlie.” Polly relented.

Charlie sat down. “I’m Charlie-um, Charlie Topping,” he said to Isabel.

“Yeah, I know. I’m Isabel Isles.”

Charlie got up again for the introduction, his knees knocking into the table.

“Christ,” Polly said.

“Sorry.”

“Just do us a favor and sit back down slowly.”

The three of them started to eat, glad for the excuse to avoid conversation. Every once in a while Charlie flicked a french fry to one of the sportier seagulls that scrounged the perimeter for food.

“Must you feed the flying rats?” Polly said.

“Gulls are useful birds and he’s-um, he’s caught three in a row.”

“Wow, what a bird.”

“The record is eleven.”

“Boys and their games.”

Charlie returned to his lunch. Isabel found something heartbreaking about the two dessert plates on his tray, the blueberry pie and the éclair, like this was where he grabbed his daily parcel of joy. Between that and his hair, which as it dried rose up like some earsplitting mushroom cloud, she wasn’t sure if she could watch this boy finish his meal.

“Where do you go to school, Isabel?” he asked.

“Brearley,” she said.

“Like in the, um, like in the city?”

“No,” Polly jumped in, “the Brearley in North Dakota.”

“Yeah, dumb question,” Charlie said. “And you’re here for the, for the summer?”

“Just for July, I think.”

“Yes, just July,” Polly confirmed.

“I’m leaving in a week for England,” Charlie informed the two girls, “London, the Lake District, kind of a tour with my-aah, my-aah, um, grandfather.” Charlie picked another french fry and chucked it extra hard and just out of reach for the seagull.

“Sounds nice,” Isabel said.

Polly almost laughed. “Summer with um Grandfather. What a treat.”

“He’s a bit of a, of a, a Renaissance man, unlike my dad. I tried camp”—Charlie made a face—“and sports, well, I only like sports that are, um, barely even sports. If we were at a carnival, I could win a dozen, a dozen of those giant stuffed animals, I’ve done it before, the stupider the game the better I am.”

“Yeah?” Isabel asked.

Charlie nodded, and then reconsidered. “Still can’t swim worth a damn though.”

“Fascinating conversation, you two,” Polly said, her eyes picking up a bigger stick. “You know I just realized something: if you two got married, let’s just say, that would make me related to you, Charlie. Imagine that. I mean we’ve known each other for so long. So many laughs together. Like remember the time you had that accident in the pool. An obvious kind of accident. Feels long ago but really wasn’t. They had to drain the whole pool. No swimming for two days. And Isabel, your parents would have to pay for the wedding. Eek. That might be difficult. Don’t worry, I’m sure something can be worked out. Maybe everyone could share a really substantial sandwich. Either way we should honor this moment, this spot right here where Charlie Topping and Isabel Isles first met and—”

That’s when food went flying, two hot dogs with mustard and ketchup, an order of fries, grape juice, chocolate cake, the majority of which crash-landed on Polly’s chest and lap. There was a moment of silence as all immediate oxygen rushed into Polly’s gasping mouth, her lungs a kiln stoked by the tables around her, the heads tilting and straining, everybody feeding the silence until the silence was fashioned into something easily broken: Polly Lash, mortified.

In retrospect, poor Polly. Her life was far from easy.

Isabel stood in front of her old apartment door, its fire-code steel painted to resemble wood. Twenty years ago when the painter had done the faux finish—graining, he called it—she had watched him and thought she might enjoy this as one of those hobbies that could double as a casual occupation—a faux finisher—and she went so far as to try
to marbleize the downstairs bathroom in Southampton, a look Andrew dubbed Cartoon Carrara. Isabel waited a second before ringing, like an actor between “To be” and everything else.

She could still clearly see that other boy in grass-stained whites, hands holding his now-empty tray as he presented his defense to Polly, that he had tripped, it was an accident, sorry, sorry, sorry, but Polly detected nothing but ugly intent in his apology, that he had done it on purpose. Charlie, ever helpful, tried handing her his napkin but Polly knocked it away in favor of yelling at the offending boy. “You really are a snake in the grass!” She stood up. Her beach dress was flavored with condiment, french fries tumbling to the ground, as well as a hot dog that rolled free of its bun and was quickly snatched up by the seagull. For a moment Polly, arms spread, was a canvas hung for all to see, but then she curled into herself and rushed away, turning back near the steps and beckoning for relative support. But Isabel didn’t see her, or she chose not to see her, which was an unfortunate skill she had. Rather, Isabel remained at the table with Charlie and this other curious boy, who plopped down in Polly’s seat and jammed a loose chunk of cake into his mouth, mostly to keep a safe distance from smiling. Who was he? The boy wiped his lips. His attention moved from sheepish Charlie and settled on Isabel with what seemed a purity of purpose, like whatever he had done, he had done for her. “So,” he said through a mouthful of chocolate cake.

After a few more rings Isabel heard movement behind the door.

W
HEN THE DOORBELL RANG
, Andrew was in his study and Andy was upstairs, while Gerd was outside doing her Gerdie things. And me? I was visiting my old apartment, since Ashley and the children were away. Okay, maybe I was snooping. Maybe I was imagining myself as a ghost, invisible in this world, trying to understand the family I would haunt for the rest of my life. Maybe I was being overly dramatic as I buried my face in my son’s pillow and put a hand on certain stuffed animals like I could read their plush minds. I touched everything, photographs, drawings, the table in the kitchen. I was father as guilty fingerprint. Then I made myself a sandwich. I’d like to say that I left soon after but I didn’t. I started to nose through my wife’s desk, her closet, searching for something, a secret maybe, a letter to a friend in which an old boyfriend was mentioned or a crazy night in Marblehead or a skinny-dip gone wrong, something where she might open up to me. But I found nothing. That didn’t stop me from going through her underwear drawer for the sake of more base privacies, which in their absence had become a mystery. That’s where I was when the doorbell rang, fingers deep in lace, while Andy was upstairs and Andrew was in his study.

Both of them assumed Gerd would answer the door.

Andy stared into his closet, hand scratching his tummy, in particular the trail of hairs recently budded from his navel, which struck him as undeniably excellent, like a waterfall splashing down into a pool of pubes, his penis the dude floating on his back. This seemed big-time, stage-four man stuff, though the few hairs poking from his nipples
kind of disturbed him, like filling coming through upholstery. Anyway, what to wear tonight? All of his pants looked like slacks and his jackets were either too blazery or too tweedy and uniformly too small. Usually he went shopping with Gerd, who pushed him toward the Nordic idea of American Preppy, which fell somewhere in Chicago, mid-1980s. But Andy never cared much. Except for tonight. Tonight he wanted to look decent even if he had a problem defining decent. Not hip. Not stylish. Not fashionable. He wanted to look older without looking like someone trying to look older. Jeanie’s age. Hi, Jeanie. Hi, Andy, you look, you look, well, great. Yes, that’s what he wanted, standing in front of his closet. Like something in a stupid movie, he supposed, except in a movie he would be the young girl and Jeanie would be the older man and he would be tempted—he as in Jeanie—and maybe she would kiss him—she as in Andy—but at the last second he would stop her and she would be hurt yet she’d understand, having dabbled in the scary messed-up world of grown-ups. But screw that. Andy wanted Jeanie Spokes riding down his waterfall, butt first and screaming. He slapped his tummy a few times. How dressy is this affair?

Doom set in, the ridiculous doom of having nothing to wear, which was a new kind of doom for Andy. He limped his wrist and lisped, “You big old fag,” hoping this might defuse things. It didn’t. It just made him feel like a pig. What was he looking for anyway? A suit? A velvet jacket and leather pants? A cowboy shirt? He had no clue, but he knew it was definitely not in here. He remembered how for a party last Christmas he had borrowed a tux from his dad, the size a pretty close fit, the early-seventies vibe a success with people who cared about those things. In one of the pockets he had found two ticket stubs to
Don Carlo
and he liked the image of his father in black tie sitting in the audience, with his wife, he supposed. Andy had even downloaded the music—it was by Verdi—and enjoyed “Dio, Che Nell’alma Infondere,” though he could never tell anyone since he was unsure of its proper pronunciation. But the song made him feel closer to the man. Andy went down the hall and opened his father’s closet, and as he browsed through those clothes again, he was struck by the smell of cedar mixed with shoe leather, the suits and jackets and pants dusted with his breath, it seemed. There must be something in here, Andy thought.