Fragile Beasts (8 page)

I try to arrange my features into something approximating a smile, but I’m afraid the best I can do is a grimace.

There have only been three people in my life whom I’ve allowed to call me, “Candy.” Rae Ann is not one of them, but over time I gave up trying to get her to call me Candace because I realized she’s simply incapable of it. She’s one of those people who must give everyone a nickname.

Shelby bounds down the steps, squealing, “You brought Baby.”

I can’t watch. I greet my nephew instead.

“Hello, Cameron.”

“’Lo Aunt Candace.”

He comes lumbering toward me. His gait is less plodding than it used to be now that he’s lost weight due to his recent illness, but he will always have the slow, heavy stride of a man who feels he’s too important to hurry for anyone.

He underwent a kidney transplant last year, and his recovery has gone well. He came to see me here a few days before his surgery. It was the only time I can remember seeing fear in his face since he was a boy, and I was pleasantly surprised to realize that it wasn’t death that frightened him but what was to become of his father’s empire. He didn’t want to leave it to me because he doesn’t like me and because he believes Stan has already given me more than I deserve. Leaving it to Rae Ann would be like leaving a vineyard to an Eskimo. Shelby is the only one of his daughters who’s showing any promise, but she’s much too young to manage such a far-reaching fortune. Besides, like any king, he has always regarded his daughters as nothing more than bait to lure other rich men’s sons into his family to help manage his affairs until his grandsons can take over. He’s never considered any of the girls potential queens.

He gives me a doughy hug.

“You’re looking good, Aunt Candace.”

“So are you. How are you feeling?”

“Never better,” he replies, slapping his barrel chest in a pastel-striped polo shirt I’m sure Rae Ann picked out for him along with the khaki pants.

He smiles and for a moment, I see Stan in his face. In the past I was never able to completely hate him because of that resemblance; now it’s one of the reasons why I do.

“That’s good to hear. Come and sit down.”

We make ourselves comfortable on the porch.

Dusk is settling over the valley. The sky is streaked with pink and primrose. I’ve already had Luis light the many candles I keep on the porch. Their flames flicker inside their jewel-tone mosaic globes, casting shards of bright color everywhere like a shattered church window.

Shelby and Rae Ann join us, Rae Ann resplendent in a short-sleeved, mint-green pantsuit with white piping that shows off her tan and her figure.

She leans forward to give me a hug, and I come face-to-face with Baby hanging limply from her well-manicured hand, shivering and bulbous-eyed.

“Here,” she extends him toward me once she stands upright again. “Speak to him in his native language.”

“I don’t speak rat.”

“I mean Spanish,” she laughs.

“Tu eres el bicho mas feo que hay en el mundo.”

Shelby frowns at me. She’s had enough Spanish to have some idea of what I said.

“What did you say?” Rae Ann asks.

“Good doggie.”

“Ooooh,” she coos, pressing the dog against her neck. “Hear that? You’re a bee-show mass fay-o. Now go play but don’t go too far.”

She sets him on the floor and he teeters uncertainly before walking off.

Luis appears from inside the house dressed in cabana boy attire. He’s wearing a bright red Hawaiian shirt covered in white lilies, white pants, and sandals. He won’t make eye contact with me because it will make him laugh.

“Buenas noches, señor Jack, señora Jack.”

“Buenas whatever to you too, Louis,” Cameron replies disgustedly.

“Cam,” Rae Ann says as she swats him playfully on his pudgy knee. “Be nice.”

Rae Ann loves to hear Spanish. It reminds her of her homeland: Miami.

“Buenas noches, Luis,” she replies with a lovely smile that isn’t lost on Luis.

“Can I offer anyone a drink?” He switches to English but maintains a thick accent for Rae Ann’s sake.

“Listening to you always reminds me of home,” she gushes. “Let’s celebrate! I’ll have a mojito.”

Cameron screws up his face as if he might spit.

“Bourbon, Mr. Jack?” Luis asks.

“Yeah.”

“¿Y usted, señorita?”

“Can I have a mojito, too?” Shelby asks her mother.

“No, they’re much too strong. Have a daiquiri.”

“And you, Miss Jack?” he asks me while still unable to look me in the eyes. “Can I bring you some warm milk?”

I watch his lips tremble beneath his bushy gray mustache as he tries to restrain his mirth.

“Bourbon for me, too, Luis. A double.”

“Bueno.”

“He’s the cutest little old man,” Rae Ann comments after Luis leaves.

I smile to myself. Her comment about his age and size serves him right.

Luis brings us our drinks, some of his homemade allioli with ciabbata bread ripped into chunks, and a small blue bowl of olives, and we commence chitchat.

Rae Ann’s centers almost completely on their homes. They have three: one here, one in New York, and one in Florida. She agreed to Cameron’s desire to continue living in a small town in rural Pennsylvania in the house where he was brought up and close to where his father established the family fortune only if they could also live part of the year some place where “other rich people live” and some place where there’s “tons of sun.” To Rae Ann’s credit, of all the truly horrid places in this country where rich people gather, she chose the only interesting one: New York. And as for her other choice, she’s one of a rare breed, a native Floridian. I can’t blame her for needing to migrate back to her original nesting grounds from time to time. She’s guided by an instinct stronger than common sense and good taste; she has Coppertone in her veins.

Shelby sits cuddled up next to her mother sipping at a red frothy daiquiri Luis prepared especially for her with little rum, not saying much, which is unusual for her. This was supposed to be a visit between her and her parents but that particular exchange never gets under way.

She dunks bread in the allioli for herself and her mother and pops one olive after another into her mouth.

Cameron doesn’t eat. He doesn’t talk either. He’s tense, distracted, and fidgety.

Eventually, he turns his oily charm on me and asks with his best salesman’s smile, “So what have you been up to, Aunt Candace?”

“I’ve been keeping busy in my way.”

“Right. In your way.”

He runs his hand through his hair, then pats it down on all sides into a perfectly smooth pewter cap, a nervous gesture of his.

“I hear you had a bit of a tragedy around here recently.”

I rack my brain. I can’t come up with any recent tragedy other than this visit.

“And what would that be?”

“That guy. The one killed in a drunk driving accident.”

“Oh, yes. The man whose funeral Shelby attended.”

“That’s awful. Drunk driving.” Rae Ann shakes her head as she reaches for her third mojito. “He’s lucky he didn’t kill anyone else. Did he kill anyone else?”

“No,” Shelby answers.

“You didn’t go to the funeral, too?” Cameron asks me.

“Absolutely not. I didn’t know the man at all.”

“Interesting. You didn’t know him at all?”

“Of course not. Shelby is friends with his sons.”

“Shel said something about you taking these boys in. Letting them live here.”

I flash Shelby a disapproving glare. She withers noticeably.

“That’s nonsense. Shelby may have brought up the subject, but I told her it could never happen. I believed it was a conversation strictly between the two of us.”

I glance her way again. She shrugs.

“Shel seemed to think you’re considering it.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Good. I mean, good.” He signals to Luis for another drink. “Can you imagine anything worse for two teenage boys than living here with you?”

I sit up in my chair, stiff-backed, holding my drink in my lap, and give him my undivided attention.

“Yes, I can imagine worse things.”

“I just mean … what would they do here? It’s like a convent but without the nuns.”

“And would nuns make the convent better or worse?”

He stares blankly at me. I’ve stumped him.

“I mean, the rules,” he rallies and continues. “The lectures. This weird Spanish obsession you have with bulls and this eye-olly shit and little old Spanish men. And your coldness and bitterness. They’re boys. If they’re going to live with a woman, they need one who’s going to take care of them and love them, someone who’s affectionate. Not you, for Christ’s sake.”

“Dad, stop it,” Shelby interrupts. “Klint and Kyle aren’t little kids.”

“You can’t even be nice to a dog,” Cameron practically bellows and gestures toward Baby who’s now curled up in Rae Ann’s lap. “An innocent little dog.”

“Cam, I think you’re being a little hard on Aunt Candy. Hard on Aunt Candy,” Rae Ann giggles drunkenly. “I almost said hard candy.”

I smile at him.

“Your concern for these boys is admirable, Cameron. Possibly you’d like to provide a home for them.”

“Oh, no,” Rae Ann objects, giggling again. “I wouldn’t have any idea what to do with boys. Well, I know what to do with boys. But that would be illegal. Wouldn’t that be illegal?”

“Stay out of this,” Cameron snaps at her and turns back to me. “I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page here.”

“And what page would that be, exactly?”

“The page where you don’t let those boys live here.”

“And the reason is simply that you don’t feel I could provide a healthy environment for them?”

“It’s not something we do, all right? Take in homeless white trash kids. It doesn’t look right.”

“And there’s no other reason?”

“Look. It doesn’t matter what my reasons are. I don’t have to explain them to you. Those kids aren’t living here. I forbid it.”

“What did you say?”

“I forbid it. I’m the head of this family. And I forbid it.”

Silence falls suddenly and very heavily. No one moves or speaks. Even the frogs and the crickets cease their musical chirping.

I stand up slowly. I have arthritis in my knees and can no longer stand quickly. The pain aside, it has caused me to adopt a more regal mode of movement.

“Cameron, your position in this family could certainly be described using a body part, but I don’t think it’s the head. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m old and tired and I’m going to bed.”

I may be old but I’m not tired and I’m not going to bed, but one of the advantages of getting on in years is that you can use your age to excuse just about any indiscretion, whether it be something trivial like a desire to leave a social gathering early or a need to wear paisley or something a little more dramatic such as driving your car into someone’s living room or shoplifting a clock.

Rae Ann won’t stand up because she doesn’t want to disturb the rat in her lap, and Shelby won’t dare come near me after what just transpired. Cameron simply has no manners.

“Just remember what I said,” he calls after me.

“I promise you, I’ll never forget it,” I reply.

I make my way through the foyer to the bottom of the staircase where Luis is standing with his tray acting as if he hadn’t been standing in the doorway a moment ago listening to our conversation.

I say nothing to him.

“Aunt Candace,” Shelby cries out from behind me.

She has followed me after all. She has more courage than I thought.

I ignore her, turning my back on both of them, and start up the stairs, glancing over my shoulder only once.

Luis whispers something to her.

She gives him a brilliant smile and makes a small curtsy.

“Muchas gracias,” she whispers back.

S
he’s going to ask us how we’re doing, this crazy, mean, ugly aunt of Shelby’s. She’s going to give us a pitiful look like we’re skinny stray cats and then she’s going to form the words very slowly and obviously like we’re kids who ride the short bus, “How are you boys doing?” Maybe she’ll even try and touch us: squeeze our shoulders or pat our hands or, holy shit, give us hugs.

I don’t know what I’m going to do because I’ve already decided if one more person asks me how I’m doing, I’m going to lose it. How am I doing? Well, I’m doing lousy, of course. My dad’s dead. My mom’s dragging me off to live with her in a crappy place while the whole time she acts like she hates me. Like I’ve done something wrong to her, and this time I’m sure I haven’t. My brother’s gone completely nuts, talking day and night about running away and kissing his dream and his future good-bye. My baby sister looks at me like I’ve committed some terrible crime I don’t even know about. Bill hobbles around with a face as long as a horse’s and sits for hours on his back porch doing nothing, not even drinking beer, which is very worrisome.

I can’t concentrate in school. I can’t even watch TV. I’m going to have to leave everything I love and everything I know. Mom won’t even let me take Mr. B. She says Jeff’s allergic to cats.

I know Bill will take care of Mr. B for me, and that way his life will change very little. Not like my life. But even though it might sound stupid, I’m sure that cat’s attached to me. I know he’ll miss me and even worse, he’ll wonder why I left. He’ll think he did something bad to make me hate him. Otherwise, why would I leave him? You can’t explain things like Arizona and Jeff to a cat.

So how am I doing? I’m doing okay, I tell the people who ask because that’s what they want to hear. They don’t want to hear the truth. They’re not asking because they care. Most of these people don’t even know me. If it wasn’t
for the fact my dad just died in a well-publicized accident, they still wouldn’t know I exist. They’d walk right by me in the halls like they used to.

The day the vice principal made the announcement at school about our dad, there was a line a mile deep outside the guidance counselors’ offices with students needing to talk to someone about their “grief.” Apparently they were so torn up about what had happened to Klint and me that they weren’t able to go to their classes, which turned out to be okay because most of the teachers were too upset to teach anyway. They spent the day in the teachers’ lounge drinking coffee, eating doughnuts, and gossiping with their other devastated colleagues while trying to regain their composure and find the strength to carry on.