City of Boys (29 page)

Marybeth pauses at the door. —Well, she says, —have a nice day.

Florence watches them from the window as they walk down
the street, until all she can see is the white sun at the end of the road. When she turns back to the familiar rooms of her house, something is different somehow, and it takes her a moment to realize that it is the smell, the heavy flowery scent of Marybeth’s perfume. She closes her eyes and breathes in, wondering what it would be like to smell like that inside her own skin.

She pauses at her door a moment before going outside; Mrs. Walker is leaning back in her rocking chair, staring directly up into the sun, and when Florence sits down beside her, Mrs. Walker does not look at her.

—Well, she says, —they’re coming. To put me down. Or whatever they call it.

Florence can hardly stand to look at the dark, hard skin of Mrs. Walker’s face, burning in the bright light. When Mrs. Walker finally turns to her, her eyes look like shiny black rocks almost buried in mud.

—Who’s that girl? she asks, and Florence looks past her, to the street.

—At your house, I mean, Mrs. Walker says. —That blond girl.

—Oh. That’s Louis’s cousin. Niece. From Indiana.

—She talks too damn loud, Mrs. Walker says. —Too loud for here. She reminds me of my husband’s children.

She closes her eyes and leans back. —Did I tell you they were coming? she asks. She moves her lips, then opens her eyes into the sun again. —What will happen to me? she asks.

Florence stands, but Mrs. Walker doesn’t shift her gaze from the sky. —What will happen to
me
? she says again. Florence stops at her door; when she turns back to ask Mrs. Walker when her husband’s children are coming, Mrs. Walker is leaning forward in her chair, gazing at the neat white gravel around her.

* * *

Florence is sitting at the kitchen table, listening to a radio call-in show about the alligator problem, the panthers in the Everglades, the trouble with wildlife in general. It is late afternoon, and she expects Louis and Marybeth back at any moment, but it is only when she hears their voices through the window that she remembers again, suddenly, that she was to call the air-conditioner repairman.

She snaps the radio off and goes to wait at the sink. When the car doors slam, she turns on the water and begins re-rinsing the dry dishes from breakfast and lunch, but she is done before they come in, so she rinses them all again, and turns when they finally enter.

—Oh boy, Marybeth says to Florence. —Are you going to be surprised. Her hair is streaked yellow from the sun. Louis follows her in, holding two small lobsters aloft.

—Look, he says. —Lobsters.

The lobsters wave their pinned claws sluggishly through the air at each side of Louis’s head. Marybeth watches them without expression.

—They
were
in a box, she says to Florence, —when we bought them. They all stare blankly at the lobsters until Marybeth says brightly, —Don’t you just love lobster?

Florence has had lobster here in Florida only once, shortly after their arrival; she and Louis went to a restaurant where they had to wait in line almost forty minutes for a table, and while they waited they were told to pick their own lobster from one of several that crept darkly around the bottom of a grimy tank. Florence said that any one would be fine, but Louis crouched in front of the tank and watched each carefully before choosing his. Florence never saw any of them actually removed from the tank, and she wondered if the lobster Louis was served was actually the lobster he had chosen. As they ate, she tried not to think of the ones they
had pointed at being lifted from the tank and dropped into boiling water.

—I don’t know, she says. —I read somewhere that lobsters scream when you cook them.

Louis looks from one lobster to the other, and slowly lowers his hands. —No, he says. —It’s painless. They wouldn’t do it that way if it wasn’t.

—That’s right, Florence, Marybeth says. —I think that’s right. The shock of the boiling water kills them instantly. Instantaneously.

The lobsters dangle listlessly from Louis’s hands, hardly bothering to move at all. Florence wonders if they can breathe, so long out of the water.

—Well, Marybeth says, —let’s get that water boiling. She begins to clatter through the cabinets, looking for a pot big enough to cook both lobsters, while Louis stands behind her, holding the lobsters at his side.

Florence waits in the bathroom while they cook the lobsters; she is sure she’s right about the scream, though she knows she would be more persuasive if she could remember where she read it, or some of the exact details. She stands at the sink and tries to recall. In the mirror, her hair looks dry and twiggy, and her face seems somehow waterblown, as if it has been left out in the rain. She turns on the taps in both the shower and the sink, to cover any sound the lobsters might make, and watches as steam rises against the mirror, slowly covering her face, from the bottom up.

When she comes back to the kitchen, the lobsters are cooked; their shells are bright red and the little wooden pegs in their claws are dark, soaked through with water.

—See? Marybeth says. —No scream. I really don’t think they feel it at all. It happens so fast.

The lobster tastes odd to Florence, fishy, but in a rotted way, and she believes it tastes the same to Louis because he eats cautiously, examining it closely, not looking at Florence as he dips each bite into the little bowl of butter in the middle of the table. Only Marybeth seems to enjoy the lobster, and when they are done, Louis wraps the shells in newspaper and folds it all carefully into the garbage can, but the odor lingers. Florence can smell it on her hands and in her hair.

—Well, Marybeth says, looking around expectantly, —now what?

Soon it will grow dark; the sprinklers will come on, Mrs. Walker will wander out to feed the birds, Louis will find a game on television, and Florence will sit on the couch behind him, reading a magazine or perhaps writing her mother.

—There’s a game on, Louis says. —The Colts.

—Oh, Marybeth says. —The Colts.

She stares out the window and taps her nails against the table. They look freshly painted, unchipped, and Florence wonders when she had a chance to paint her nails, hitchhiking down from New York.

—I know, Marybeth says. —Let’s play cards.

Louis looks at the television. —Cards? he echoes unenthusiastically.

—Sure, she says. —I always carry a deck of cards. It helps pass the time. You know what I mean, she says, nodding at Florence.

—You two play, Florence says. —I have to write some letters.

A look of mild disappointment crosses Louis’s face, like a shadow moving over a wide field, leaving behind as it passes only the same regular landscape, unaffected by the changing weather above.

* * *

Florence listens to them play cards as she writes her mother.
Dear Mother
, she has down so far.
Louis is fine. We are both fine. The weather is beautiful, bright and sunny. Tonight we had fresh lobster
. She tries to think of some way to mention Marybeth: a friend of Louis’s, she considers, or, simply, a houseguest. She imagines her mother reading the letter, and putting it down on a table somewhere, half finished, then forgetting where she left it as she tries to tell Florence’s father what it said: Oh, something about a house–guest, she would say, some sort of friend of Louis’s.

Florence finishes the letter without mentioning Marybeth, then writes two more, almost exactly like it, one to her aunt, the other to a woman she worked with briefly. She wonders what they will all think her life is like when they read the letters–if they will imagine her at the beach, diving in and out of brilliant water, tan and lively, as she herself once imagined it would be.

When she is done with the letters, she looks carefully through the newspaper for any articles that might interest her mother; she is searching especially for any stories about alligators, with pictures of them resting innocently on neat suburban lawns. She takes her time with the paper, reading every editorial, every letter, every comic strip, but even so, when she finally rises to go to bed, Louis and Marybeth are still at their game of cards, their heads bent over the table; the light above them picks out the shiny blond streaks in Marybeth’s hair.

Florence lies awake until Louis comes to bed; she stays still while he settles down onto his elbow beside her and she can hear a slight wheeze as he breathes; it occurs to her that it is, after all, possible that he does have some trouble breathing here, something more than the discomfort everyone has
with the hot, damp air. She can tell by his stillness that he wants to say something to her, and he reaches his hand out, his fingers coming to rest in the hollow at the base of her neck.

—I just wondered if you were awake, he says.

She pulls her neck away from his hand. —I was sleeping, she says, and turns her face to the wall. The bathroom door opens and closes, but nothing follows, no flush, no running water; she is sure that Marybeth is listening to them, leaning her head against the mirror and listening as she smiles and admires the bright pink gleam of her fingernails.

By the time Florence gets up in the morning, Louis has already risen and showered; he sits at the table, reading the paper as Marybeth shakes coffee from the can into the coffeepot.

—Florence, she says. —How did you sleep? Louis looks up at her, and when she says fine, he looks back to the paper. —Me, too, Marybeth says. —This is the best sleep I’ve had since I left New York. She smiles, and waves the coffee can, scattering coffee across the counter. —The air is so clean, she says. —I feel like I can breathe again.

Florence turns on the water in the sink, to run the sulphur off. Mrs. Walker is already in her chair, rocking gently into the gravel. She holds her hands up in front of her, her palms to the sun, and stares at them, then drops them and looks down at the ground.

—You know, Marybeth says, —you waste a lot of water like that. Water is not, she says, turning to Louis, —a renewable resource.

—You have to, Florence says, but she turns the water off and watches it drain from the sink.

—Look, Louis says. —The Mets lost.

Marybeth joins him at the table, and together they read
through the box scores. Florence turns the water back on and lets it run over her hands until they feel numb. When she shuts the water off, she can’t feel them; they are like empty spaces at the end of her arms. Behind her, Marybeth offers Louis another cup of coffee.

—Okay, Marybeth says. —Let’s get moving. She walks to the sink, holding her cup out in front of her, balanced flat on the palm of her hand.

—Florence, she says, —you really should come with us. The sunshine would do you good. She drops her cup in the sink and turns. —You can think about it while we get ready.

Florence sits at the table, listening to the sounds Marybeth makes in the bathroom: the water running, the slap of lotion against her delicate skin. Louis comes in dressed for the beach, in his green shoes and terry-cloth jacket. A pair of sunglasses hangs around his neck, suspended from a bright new blue cord, which he runs his fingers up and down self-consciously. Marybeth comes back into the room smiling.

—Are you sure you don’t want to come? she asks, and Louis puts his hand on the doorknob. —It will be fun.

Florence stands in the middle of the room, looking around her. —Well, she says, —if you really want me.

Louis takes his hand from the doorknob and carefully arranges his sunglasses in the exact center of his chest.

The beach is noisy and crowded, and they stand at the edge of the parking lot, looking out over the sand. A baby totters by in front of them, and behind it a young woman follows. —Janette, she calls as the baby lurches toward the road. —Janette, you wait, but she seems uninterested in catching up with the baby, lounging slowly after it even as she calls its name.

—Oh, Marybeth says, —there’s a perfect spot.

They follow her out across the sand until she stops abruptly and drops her knapsack. —Is this perfect? she says. She unbuttons her shirt and watches as Florence takes off her blouse.

—Boy, Marybeth says. —You must have the whitest skin in Florida. Look, and she pulls the strap of her bathing suit away from her shoulder to show a thin pale strip of skin. —Even where I’m not tanned, she says, —I’m darker than you. You’d better be careful. You could get a bad burn.

She nods and stares out at the water. —You need to tan gradually. Otherwise you’ll burn and peel and that’s bad for your skin. It will make you old before your time. She nods seriously, and Florence can tell she likes the sound of the words. —Yep, she says, —old before your time. You’ll look like that old woman in that rocking chair.

Louis places his hands flat against the sand and moves them in small circles, widening outward; then he lifts his hands and looks down at the designs he’s made, smiling, pleased with what he’s done.

It makes Florence wonder a moment, at the touch of his hand, the whisper of his breath on her neck in the morning. She stands.

—I think I’ll get a drink, she says, and leaves them in the sand, Louis still looking down at his circles. She is conscious of Marybeth watching her walk away, and she tries to move gracefully, but her heels sink into the sand, and she feels like an animal lumbering up a hill.

The concession stand sits on a concrete slab under a flat roof; there are several picnic tables, full of people with bright red unhappy faces; they look dazed, and they eat and drink mechanically. Just at the edge of the concrete, sea gulls flap and pace, giving out coarse, starving shrieks, but signs everywhere forbid the feeding of them, and the few that venture onto the patio are ignored or kicked aside.

Florence buys a box of popcorn and carries it across the sand to a stunted palm that offers a few feet of shade; she crouches at its base and experimentally throws out a few pieces of popcorn. Almost immediately a sea gull dives into the sand and pecks it up; another follows, then another, and in only a few moments she is backed against the rough trunk of the tree, surrounded by a chaos of flapping wings. Gulls peck roughly at the sand, and at each other, every now and then sending up a harsh chorus of cries.