Naked (26 page)

The older kids gave perfunctory greetings and went back to reading or texting or playing their video games, but the three youngest crowded around me with wide eyes. The
littlest, a diapered girl in a smudged yellow sundress, climbed up on the sofa beside me and touched my hair over and over.

“Trina, get down offa her,” Denise said, but made no other move to get her kid off me.

Alex scooped up the girl and flubbered the side of her neck until she squealed, then handed her to her mother. “Change her diaper, for God’s sake.”

Denise rolled her eyes. “Yeah, listen to you, like you’ve ever changed a diaper in your life. How about you, Olivia? You got any kids?”

I looked around at the pack of children and then at her. “I…No.”

Tanya reached to ruffle Alex’s hair. “Maybe you will soon, huh? Big brother gonna be a daddy?”

“Yeah, you’d better get caught up,” Johanna told him. “Hell, even Jamie’s got a kid now. I seen him at the mall a couple weeks ago. You still keep in touch with Jamie, don’tcha?”

“Of course he does,” Denise said with scorn. “Do you even think he’d be back here just to see us?”

She said it like a joke, but we all heard the weight of truth in her words.

“Yeah, I knew Jamie had a kid,” Alex said. “His name’s Cam.”

“Well, well, well,” said a booming voice from the back of the room. “If it’s not the whattaya call it…prostitute son?”

“Prodigal, Dad,” Tanya said under her breath.

“And his blushing bride-to-be.” Mr. Kennedy moved into the room on feet that looked too small to support his bulk. He was short of hair up top, but the growth sprouting from his ears and eyebrows made up for that. “Livvy, is it?”

“Her name’s Olivia, Dad,” Alex said to him. To me, “John Kennedy.”

“Just like that idjit who got his head blown off.” John Kennedy must’ve been warned by his wife, because although his roving gaze picked me thoroughly apart, he didn’t look as surprised as she had. “Welcome, girl. We’ve been waiting for the boy to bring someone home for a long time. Hell, we’re just glad you’re a girl, right?”

His knee-slapping
hyuk-hyuk
was the only laughter. All of Alex’s sisters found other places to look, and Alex said nothing. I cleared my throat.

“It’s nice to meet you, sir.”

“Sir? Sir, yet? Nice manners on her, son. But you don’t have to call me sir, Livvy, just call me John.”

“Her name’s Olivia,” Alex said tightly. “Not Liv.”

His father looked at him. John Kennedy was a lot less stupid than he was acting. His smile tightened chapped lips at the corners, and he fixed his son with a deep, solid stare.

“I heard you the first time.”

“Umm…dinner’s ready…” said Mrs. Kennedy, who still had no first name. “Let’s all go eat, okay?”

John patted his giant belly. “Yes. Let’s do that. C’mon, Liv—Olivia. You come sit next to me.”

It was hard to tell if this was an honor or a punishment. John Kennedy talked my ear off for the entire meal. He had a lot to say about many topics—religion, politics, newspaper columns. Taxes. There was a lot wrong with this country, in John’s opinion, and all of it appeared to be the fault of many people who were not John Kennedy.

“You a vegetarian?”

His question surprised me, interrupting as it had a diatribe
against a local chain department store that apparently no longer carried his favorite brand of cigarettes. Startled, I glanced down to the end of the table where Alex was entertaining one of his nieces with a magic trick. I looked at my plate, where most of the food was gone.

“No.”

John pointed with his fork at the small slice of ham I’d taken for politeness but hadn’t touched. “You’re not eating that.”

“Dad, for fuck’s sake—”

“Hey!” John drew down those heavy brows and stabbed the air with his fork. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

Some of the kids giggled. Alex didn’t. He put down the saltshaker he’d been trying to make disappear.

“She doesn’t have to eat anything she doesn’t want to.”

“John,” said Mrs. Kennedy timidly, “the ham is very salty. Maybe Olivia just doesn’t care for it.”

John reached over and ground his fork into the small slab of ham on my plate and lifted it to his mouth. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed. “Ain’t a damn thing wrong with that ham, Jolene. I’m just wondering if Livvy don’t eat ham for some reason.”

I clutched my hands in my lap to keep anyone from seeing how they’d suddenly begun to shake. “No offense meant, Mrs. Kennedy. I’m sure it’s delicious.”

“Huh. I thought maybe you weren’t eating it because you were one of them moose-lums.”

“Dad!” Alex shoved back from the table, but I cast him a look.

“I’m not a Muslim, Mr. Kennedy.”

He eyed me. “Good. Cuz I won’t have a goddamned Muslim at my table.”

Across from me, Johanna groaned and dropped her head into her hand. “Dad. Good Lord.”

“What’s a moose-lum?” asked one of the smaller kids.

Nobody said a word.

John shot me a grin filled with crooked, yellowed teeth. “Just so long as you ain’t one.”

I wanted to stand up then and show him the necklace my mother had given me. I wanted to proudly proclaim I was a Jew, just to see if that would piss him off. I wanted to own who I am. But I caught Alex’s gaze and his angry slash of a mouth, and I knew the only thing standing up for myself would do was cause a lot of trouble just then. John would probably say something incredibly rude, and from the look on Alex’s face, I thought he might just punch the old guy in the face.

“Delicious mashed potatoes, Mrs. Kennedy,” I said as serenely as I could.

The collective sigh of relief couldn’t be ignored, but John didn’t seem to notice. He got right back to his constant stream of complaints against society. This time, he added jokes. To be fair, he was an equal-opportunity bigot, a modern-day Archie Bunker tempered with a mutated twist of political correctness. John Kennedy didn’t say “Polack,” he said “Polish guy.” He didn’t say “Chink,” he said “Chinaman.” And he never once, in a whole slew of ethnic jokes, said the word
nigger.

I think we were all waiting for it. I wouldn’t have been shocked to hear him say it. I’m not sure I’d even have been angry—but never having been called a nigger to my face by someone who meant it with derision, I’m not sure how I would have reacted. We all just waited for it. I’d felt out of
place before, one dark face in a roomful of pale skin, but I’d never been so on edge about waiting for it to be pointed out.

In the end, it wasn’t a black joke that got the biggest reaction. We’d all finished dinner and were picking at the apple pie and ice cream. John had already put away a huge slice and was on his second.

The first gay joke slipped in between a rant about gas prices and cigarette taxes. At the second, I glanced down the table to see Alex’s reaction. He was staring at his plate, at the ice cream melting over his untasted pie. His hair had fallen forward, so I couldn’t see his eyes.

Nobody had laughed at any of the jokes, but that hadn’t stopped John from continuing. The third faggot joke was about gay marriage. That’s when I looked up from my plate.

“I don’t think that’s funny.”

Dead silence except for Mrs. Kennedy’s squeak. I didn’t look to see what Alex was doing. I kept my gaze focused on John’s face.

He studied me intently, and I wondered for whose benefit all those jokes had been made, anyway. His eyes gleamed with dark and nasty intelligence and justification. He thought he had the right to feel the way he did about the blacks, the queers, the spics and chinks and hymies. He didn’t seem to notice he was as much a stereotype as any one of the groups he was brutalizing with his poor sense of humor.

“Well, now,” he said with a leering grin. “I guess I don’t find faggots funny, either.”

And he left it at that.

In the Kennedy house, women cleaned up after dinner, while the men retired to the basement to watch television. Alex stayed upstairs until one of his sisters chased him off.

“Get out of the way,” she said without pulling any punches. “We want to get to know your Olivia.”

“Will you be okay?” he whispered as he kissed me.

“I will,” I assured him, with a look into the kitchen where the other women were working. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounded defeated and looked pale. He hadn’t eaten much.

I touched his cheek. “Baby, there are all sorts of people in the world, and some of them are assholes.”

He smiled at that and kissed me. “I love you.”

“I know you do. Go.” I pushed him toward the basement door. “Go…bond.”

“As if,” he said with a glower, but went.

Away from her husband, Jolene Kennedy proved to have a much better sense of humor, even though she didn’t tell many jokes. She had a pretty laugh that rang out in the tiny kitchen as she let her daughters push her into a chair to play with her grandchildren instead of hand-washing all the pots and pans. I pitched in, no stranger to kitchen work, and found that Alex’s sisters might have been sluts in high school, but they were pretty decent mothers and daughters for all that.

And they loved their brother, that was clear. They told me stories about him—how he’d always been there when they needed something. A ride, some money, advice. He’d moved away when they were very young, and still had managed to be a large part of their lives. Maybe more than my own brothers had, and we were closer in age. Their stories fit a piece into the puzzle of the man I loved, and I saw another picture of him.

I excused myself to use the bathroom, the only one in the house, in the upstairs hallway. When I came out, John was
waiting. I stepped aside to let him pass, but he countered with a step in front of me.

My heart pounded, but I refused to let him see he’d intimidated me. “Excuse me.”

“So, you’re gonna marry our boy?”

“I plan to. Yes.”

“In a church?”

I stared at Alex’s father, whose gaze dropped to the necklace on the outside of my blouse. “We haven’t decided yet.”

His gaze roamed all over me. “You know, I can’t say as I’m surprised he picked you, Livvy. You are awful pretty for a black girl. I’ve had a taste or two of black girls myself, though don’t you let on to Jolene.”

I tasted bile but kept my chin high. “Excuse me.”

He didn’t move. “You full black?”

“What?”

“Are you full black,” he repeated, as though I were stupid, or deaf. “I only ask because you got some white features to you. And you ain’t so dark, you know?”

Oh, I knew all right. I swallowed the surge of acid and looked him in the eye. “I love your son, and he loves me. It has nothing to do with the color of my skin, you racist asshole. Now let me by before I kick you in your nuts.”

John blinked, then grinned, but didn’t move. “Sassy, ain’t ya?”

I moved closer, my mouth twisted in a sneer. “Get out of my way.”

His fingertip shot out and flicked my necklace. A point of the star stung my throat. “So. You’ll get married in the church? Yes or no?”

I pushed past him without answering. John followed me
down the stairs. I found everyone in the living room. Alex was laughing with Tanya. It was the most relaxed I’d seen him since we arrived. He shot me a smile that faded quickly.

“Don’t walk away from me,” John said from behind me.

The room froze. I’m sure all of the people in it had heard his tone before, judging by their reactions. Johanna went visibly pale. Even the teens looked up from their video games and cell phones. Alex took a step forward.

“Thank you for lunch, Mrs. Kennedy,” I said clearly. “I think it’s time we left.”

“Girl, don’t you walk away from me when I’m talking to you. I asked you a question.”

“And I gave you an answer,” I said calmly, though my knees were shaking, my guts quaking. “We haven’t discussed it yet. And frankly, it’s for me and Alex to decide. Not for you.”

“What’s going on?” Alex asked.

“I asked your girl here if you were getting married in the church, and she won’t answer me. I just want to know,” John said. “I mean, doesn’t an old man have a right to know if his only son’s going to get married the right way or the wrong way? Or should I just be glad he’s getting married at all?”

It was not the first time Alex’s father had teased with such a comment, but this time, Alex responded. “You mean that I’m not a faggot, right?”

John laughed heartily, the same false
hyuk-hyuk.
“No son of mine’s a cocksucker.”

I found Alex’s gaze with mine and tried to send him strength, but this was not my battle. It probably never had been about me at all. He looked at his dad with an expression so blank it might have been on a doll.

“We’re leaving now. We’ll let you know about the wedding. But don’t expect it to be in a church.” Alex looked at me. “C’mon, babe, let’s get out of here.”

I thought John might shout after us, but nobody said a word as we left. Nobody even offered a goodbye. We left in total, utter silence unbroken until we got in the car.

Then Alex let loose. “Stupid motherfucking shit-heel asshole!”

He jammed the car in Reverse and we smoked into traffic. He clutched the wheel so tightly his fingers turned white. I said nothing, just let him rant. I didn’t point out that he sounded a lot like his dad.

He didn’t stop until we got to the hotel parking lot. Then he turned off the car and drew in a deep, hitching breath. He didn’t look at me.

“I’m sorry, Olivia. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I stroked his hair and let my hand rest on the knotted bunch of his shoulders. I squeezed. “Honey, I don’t care about your dad being a prick. Really.”

He looked at me. “He was baiting me.”

“Yes. He was.” I hesitated, thinking of the conversation in the upstairs hall, and wondered what might happen if I told Alex the other things his dad had said.

“I should’ve told him.”

I worked at the knot in his shoulder. “Told him what?”

Alex shook his head. “I don’t know. That he was right. I am a cocksucker.”

“That’s not all you are.”

I took my hand away and put it in my lap. His heavy breathing filled the air between us, but I had nothing to say.
No comfort to give. This was a shaky bridge over a treacherous drop.