Earth Angel (17 page)

“Whoa, easy,” he said. “What’s the hurry, cowboy?”

“Here’s the Advil,” Josh said. He shook two into his palm. I held up four fingers. He looked at David. “The directions say
two.”

“Give her four,” he said.

“The directions say two.” He shook out two more and handed them to me with one hand and handed me a glass of water with the
other. “Maybe you should sign a release or something. In case.”

“You kidding?” I said. “After tonight, I already own this house. Including all the shit that abounds in Josh’s room.”

Josh reddened and looked away.

David laughed. “Good, as the new landlord maybe you can fix the water heater.”

Yes, I could do that. Maybe that’s all I had to do for these people. Fix their water heater and move on, their lives magically
better, filled with endless, hot steaming showers.

I dropped the four Advil into the water and stirred with my finger.

“Why’d you do that?” Rachel asked.

“Works faster.” I swallowed the concoction and closed my eyes. Well, I was still here among them, so there was still hope
I could discover the magic whatnot that would fix their broken lives.

“You okay, Grace?” David asked seriously.

I opened my eyes. Somehow I’d lain back down without knowing it. “I’m fine.” I swung my legs to the floor and stood up. I
took a few practice steps. My shin hurt from the contusion, my elbow was tender, and my tailbone was a little sore. I shuffled
over to the wall mirror, the three of them following carefully behind me like spotters at a gymnastic event. I leaned toward
the mirror. My right cheek was slightly swollen. I breathed in deeply but felt no constriction or pain from my ribs. No cracks
or breaks. Probably all I had were some bruises and a slight limp.

David pointed at my limping leg. “I’ll show you how to
do that right. Maximize your sympathy. Sometimes it gets you to the head of the grocery checkout line.”

I looked at his limping leg. Maybe it could be fixed with an operation and extensive physical therapy. I could fly him to
the best hospital. That could be my gift. “What happened to your leg?” I probed.

Everyone froze as if I’d just spit on the carpet. Josh and Rachel exchanged nervous looks. David’s face tensed.

I quickly backpedaled, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I’m an anthropologist,” David said. “I was living with the Moki tribe in Brazil for a year. Well, it was supposed to be for
a year. About six months into it we had a little… misunderstanding.” He turned and walked toward the kitchen. “So, you still
want that corned-beef sandwich or what?”

We all followed him to the kitchen. I wasn’t really hungry but I had to stall for time. Once I walked out the front door tonight,
I didn’t know how I’d ever get back in again. I couldn’t keep falling down their stairs.

“You’re pretty handy at first aid,” I said, limping after David. Somehow my limp synchronized with his and we both looked
as if we were imitating each other.

“I lived in a Buddhist monastery in Japan for eight months. One of the other guys was a cardiologist from Ohio. He taught
me a few things. You need a heart transplant fashioned from tofu?”

A Buddhist monastery. I tried to picture him bald in an orange robe, but it didn’t fit. “Are you Buddhist?” Maybe I could
fly in the Dalai Lama, or Richard Gere.

“I told you, I’m an anthropologist. I worship Margaret Mead and, of course, whoever invented television so we can watch all
those National Geographic specials.”

My head began to clog with facts: John Logie Baird, an English scientist, transmitted the first recognizable television image
in the attic of his home. The head of a ventriloquist’s dummy named Bill. Excited, Baird charged down
the stairs. He came across a frightened office boy and convinced him to sit under the bright lights. That boy was the first
living image to be transmitted. October 2, 1925. In 1927 he transmitted—

I squeezed my eyes tight to shut off the spigot of facts. It was amnesia in reverse; instead of forgetting, I was uncontrollably
remembering things. It was like having neighbors blaring their stereo while you were trying to sleep.

“Grace?” David asked.

I opened my eyes. “Hmmm?”

He gestured toward the table. “Sit down. You want something to drink? Soda, juice, coffee?”

I sat. “Coffee’s fine.”

The phone rang and Josh and Rachel both lunged for it. Rachel won. She answered, made a face, handed it to Josh. “It’s the
other half of your brain.”

Josh nudged her aside with his hip. When he grabbed the phone it was the first time I’d seen him truly smile since meeting
him. It was like seeing a trapped miner catch his first glimpse of sunlight. “Hey,” he said into the phone. “Nothing much…
Tonight? Sure, what time?… Cool. See ya.” He hung up and turned to David, excited. “That was Kyle. They’ve got his dad’s van
so they’re going tonight. They’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Tonight?” David looked annoyed.

“I told you it would be sudden. Kyle’s parents drove out to Palm Springs to visit his grandparents. The window of opportunity
is wide open.”

“Who’s going?” David asked. He was measuring out coffee for the coffee maker.

“Kyle, Vernon, John, Stu. And me.”

David gave him a weary look. “You’re seventeen, Josh.”

“For three more months.”

He shook his head. “Three months, three years. Same difference.”

“Kyle is seventeen.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“If you’re going, I’m going. They’re
my
friends, not yours.”

“That’s not the point, Josh. I’m only going because of my project.”

“Look, if I hadn’t told you about this trip for your stupid project, I would have just sneaked off with them and gone anyway.
You wouldn’t even have known. I did you a favor.”

“First of all, my project isn’t stupid, it’s asinine. Big difference. Asinine gets government funding.”

“You’re not funny,” Josh said.

“Second of all, it’s dangerous, Josh. Worse, the whole idea of this trip is demeaning.”

“
You’re
going.”

“You know why I’m going. I have to.”

Josh snorted. “I’m going to shower and change. I want to be ready when they get here.” He walked out of the kitchen. I heard
his long legs climbing the stairs two or three at a time.

David exhaled a great parental sigh. “Excuse me a minute. Family bonding time.” He walked off after Josh.

Rachel went over to the counter and finished measuring the coffee into the filter and pouring in the water. “You want anything
in your coffee, Grace?”

“Black,” I said.

Rachel put half her corned-beef sandwich on a plate and set it in front of me.

“Thanks. It’s nice of you to share.”

“Charity is very important in Judaism. It’s a
mitzvu
, a blessing.”

“
Mitzvah
,” I corrected.

“Oh, right.” She brightened. “Are you Jewish?”

I hesitated. What could I say—I used to be? I almost said yes just to make her happy, create some sort of rapport. Plus, it
seemed cruel denying my parents’ beliefs, even if they weren’t mine. “Assimilation,” I remember our
rabbi saying, “will kill off the Jews faster than Hitler.” I was worse than Hitler! Finally, I just shook my head. “Not really.”

She showed no reaction as she went to the counter to pour my coffee. The silence between us felt like a failure on my part,
an inability to speak to children. I had to say something. Otherwise we were just like two women waiting in line to use the
public restroom. “I can see some of your father in you, the eyes, I think.”

“You knew my father?”

I blinked, confused. “Sorry?”

“Oh. Of course, you meant David. You were being nice.” She placed the coffee cup in front of me and sat down across the table.

“David’s not your father?”

“No. Our parents died in a rock-climbing accident two years ago. David’s our godfather. He’s been taking care of us since
the accident.”

Overhead we could hear the loud but muffled voices of Josh and David arguing. Heavy footsteps thumped across the floor, drawers
slammed. The lighter off-rhythm limp of David followed, whisper soft.

“What about aunts and uncles and grandparents?” I asked. “Don’t you have any of those.”

“Sure, plenty. But my parents wanted David to raise us. It was in their will.”

“And your family didn’t mind?”

“No. Why should they?”

Let’s see: a former Buddhist monk-archeologist with a limp received under mysterious circumstances while living with some
Amazonian tribe. And where did Lisa Demme, David’s suicidal ex-wife, fit in? Had she been part of the package. Had living
with Josh and Rachel driven her to drugs. I decided not to ask Rachel, whose head was bowed, eyes closed, and who was muttering
the Hebrew blessing for bread: “
Baruch atoh Adonoi
…”

Josh and David returned to the kitchen. Josh was not showered nor changed. His face was sulky. David, however, was wearing
black jeans, white hightop Keds, and the same faded green sweatshirt. He also had a black padded sports bag slung over his
shoulder, which he set next to the kitchen door with a heavy clunk.

“What happened?” Rachel asked.

David smiled. “We settled it man to man.
Mano a mano
. Hand-to-hand combat.”

Rachel shook her head. “Josh, you’ll never learn.”

Josh made a defeated face. “He’s got to lose sometime. It’s impossible to always win.”

I must have looked as bewildered as I felt, because David turned to me and said, “Rock-scissors-paper.”

“David never loses,” Rachel said.

“Never?” I said.

“Never.” David nodded.

“That’s impossible.”

“Wanna bet?” David said.

I looked between Josh and Rachel. “It’s mathematically impossible for him to never lose. You must mean
rarely
loses.”

“Never,” Josh said. “He never ever
ever
fucking ever loses.”

“Josh,” David said. “Don’t be a jerk.”

Josh muttered what might have been “Sorry” or “Screw you.” Hard to tell.

I looked skeptically at David. “So this is how you resolve family disputes? Rock-scissors-paper.”

He shrugged. “Interpersonal family dynamics. Give kids a say in decision-making process. Saw it on
Oprah
.”

“What if Josh had won?”

“He didn’t, he won’t.”

“Because you never lose?”

“Never.”

I laughed. “Impossible.”

David took out his wallet, slapped a five-dollar bill on the table. “Like I said, wanna bet?”

“What’s the bet?”

“I beat you five times without you winning once. Ties don’t count.” He smoothed the bill with the edge of his hand.

“Seven times. Five times can be coincidence. Seven times is highly improbable.”

“Okay, seven times.”

Josh smiled at me for the first time. “Can I get a piece of this? Five bucks on David.”

Rachel jumped up and grabbed her purse which was hanging from the doorknob. “Me, too.”

I looked at them all. “Fine. You’re all on. Maybe he’s got you guys psyched out, but he doesn’t even know me.”

“Don’t I?” He smiled. “After all, I’m living in your house. I’ve been absorbing your emanations for years.” He closed his
eyes and took a deep breath. “All those skin cells you shed in this house while you were growing up are still floating around.
I breathe them in, they dissolve inside of me, become part of my body. Your DNA code is in me, clinging to my heart like glitter
confetti.”

I knew he was teasing me, but there was something eerie about it, too. And, oddly, erotic. I felt an involuntary twitch across
my pelvis. “Let’s get on with it.”

“Okay.” He pulled up a chair next to mine and pushed his sweatshirt sleeves up to his elbows. His arms were tan and sinewy.
Three raised white scars marked his forearm like a chorus line of thick slugs.

“Same tribe?” I asked, nodding at the scars, obviously deliberately inflicted.

He shook his head. “Eskimos.” He looked over at Rachel. “Rachel, you count to three.”

We each made a fist which we bobbed with each count, finally throwing our hand into position on the count of three.

I had rock. David had paper.

“That’s one,” he said.

I cleared my mind. Maybe there was a pattern people unconsciously used. I would clear my mind, be completely random, without
pattern. I wouldn’t plan my choice, just let it happen.

“One, two… three!”

I had rock. David had paper.

“Give up?” he said.

The next two times we tied. Then he won again. We tied again, then he won again. And again. I closed my eyes for the next
two, snapping out my hands without looking until both our choices were made. He won both times. Seven in a row.

“I told you,” Josh said. He seemed relieved, like Kevin McCarthy at the end of the old
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
, when the cops discover the truck of pods and finally believe him.

I limped to the living room, retrieved my purse, and paid each of them five dollars. I half expected David to refuse to let
me pay, but I was glad he didn’t.

He snatched up the five-dollar bill I’d laid on the table. “This should just about cover all the Advil you scarfed down.”

“I’m still not convinced you never lose,” I said. “But how do you win so often?”

“He doesn’t win often,” Rachel said. “He
always
wins.”

“Only at this, though,” David said. “Golf is still my nemesis.”

“And tennis. You suck at tennis,” Josh said.

“And rummy. I always beat you at that,” Rachel said. “And chess.”

“Okay, okay. Enough of what I’m lousy at. I’m still the undisputed king of rock-scissors-paper. I’m the Elvis of hand gestures.”

“But you can’t make any money at that,” Josh said.

The doorbell rang followed by some enthusiastic knocking.

“Josh, let’s go, bud,” the young voice called. “This is a non-stop flight to ecstasy.”

Suddenly everyone around me was moving. It was like a fire drill or something. David was hustling around gathering his wallet
and jacket and keys. Josh tagged after him, pleading to go along. Rachel started clearing dishes from the table, though no
one had actually gotten around to eating. She plastic-wrapped my untouched half of the corned-beef sandwich and shoved it
in the refrigerator before I even knew it was gone. I was already disappearing here, sinking into the icy black murk. If I
didn’t do something I would be out of their lives, an amusing anecdote about a clumsy stranger who dropped by the other night
and tumbled down their stairs. Ha, ha.