This Beautiful Life (6 page)

“Wish I could get me one of those,” McHenry once said, when the couple walked past them. Jake had to squelch the urge to punch McHenry in the gut; sometimes the dude was such an asshole. Because McHenry said it like he knew that they had sex, and he didn't know; none of them knew if Audrey and Luke had sex, and Jake didn't like to think about it. Probably all the guys felt that way, maybe, Jake thought, when they saw Audrey with Luke, even possibly the gay ones, because in some weird way she kind of looked like a pretty boy. Her chest was so flat. Just two pushpin-size nipples poking through her black T-shirts, maybe a little swell behind them, the puffy thickness of a bottom lip after you kissed it. Jake had kissed girls—he'd hooked up—and when you pulled away, even after only about fifteen minutes, their lips kind of inflated a little; there was no other word for it; they puffed. Once Jake stood behind Audrey at the water fountain and he saw the inside of that wrist when she turned the fountain on—the fountain was from the prehistoric age: you had to flip a metal lever like in a pinball machine for the water to come out—so he got to see the inside of her wrist and first he thought it was a tattoo and then he realized that what he was seeing were blue veins riding the tiny bones of that little wrist, like long worms you could see through her translucent skin. He wanted to gently press one. Would it melt under the flesh or would it rise to his touch? Jake doubted that Audrey ever ate anything. She looked like she lived on air.

Chinois.

It sounded like a fancy name for a fragrant, lacey breeze… or was that the word
Chinook
? He'd have to look it up.

S
o when Henry and James and McHenry and Django told him about this party Friday night up in Fieldston, in one of the Olivias' basements or pool house or whatever, Jake thought, sure, he'd go along. Maybe Audrey would be there and he'd see her eat something. That was kind of like his only impetus. Besides, the guys made him go. His mom and his sister were at some dumb sleepover anyway, and his dad worked a lot. It would be better than hanging out alone at home.

They stayed up in Riverdale when school let out. Davis and this kid Jonas joined them. They went over to Johnson Avenue and ate pizza. There was a lot of time to kill. They went to a nearby deli and bought some tallboys; McHenry's fake ID was on hand, even though nobody bothered to ask. They busted out of the deli as a laughing, raucous gang—like a multiheaded animal—and then they laughed even harder when they startled a group of older Orthodox men in payas talking on the sidewalk. There were a lot of Orthodox Jews in Riverdale. Jake was a Jew; that is, his mom was, so he was one, too, by Jewish
law
, she said, but he'd never met any Orthodox Jews or even seen this kind before they moved to New York. He kind of liked how they looked different, how they carried their inner beliefs on their backs. There was courage in that.

As a group, Jake and his friends practically owned the street. They jostled each other, taking up the whole sidewalk, laughing and smoking and making their way away from the strip of stores and into the residential neighborhood, the redbrick apartment buildings and then the “houses” houses, like a normal place. People had to step out of their way. Sometimes Jake took a step backward to let an old lady pass. Sometimes he didn't.

In the woods behind Jonas's house, McHenry fired up a joint and they stared out over the Hudson. Jake liked to look at the river; he liked the idea that the city ended, that there was water and another side. His mom said they would have a view of the river in their new apartment, and Jake was kind of looking forward to that, to being able to look out his window and see the water move. Jake and Henry smoked cigarettes and drank beers, James and Django, too. Davis smoked with McHenry and didn't want a beer; he said the beer would interfere with his buzz. There were boats on the Hudson, long industrial-looking barges and sleek motor craft, one old-fashioned sailboat with multiple sails, swelling in the breeze like flags, which looked like a pirate ship. “Ahoy there, mateys,” said McHenry, like he was being funny and this was some hilarious take on some original vision thing that he alone possessed. The guy was a total asshole. Jake had no idea why they all hung out with him, but Jake was too new, and ultimately too nice—he hated that he was so nice—to say or do much about it. Then they all needed to pee, so they did, on a stand of trees. McHenry and Davis had a sword fight until Henry said, “Jesus, you guys are puerile,” and then they turned around and tried to pee on Henry, somebody's stream hitting the bottom of Henry's jeans in a little arc of stitching, which really pissed him off. Jake noticed then that McHenry wasn't circumcised and it was the first time he'd ever seen one up close.

“What are you staring at, faggot?” said McHenry. He actually looked steamed.

“Aw, he's never seen a dog in a bun before,” said Henry, getting it. “I can't believe you pissed on my fucking pants.”

They had a lot of time to kill, and it was showing. There were rips in the fragile membrane encasing their camaraderie. They could easily get into a fight or something. They were all coming down a little now, and the evening hadn't even begun yet. Even the horizon was still light, though the water was getting darker, as if night started from the river and bled its way up toward the sky.

“Come on, let's just go to Jonas's house and play Xbox,” said Davis. Ever the paxmeister, the peacemaker, another nice guy.

Jonas shrugged. “All right with me.” So they spent a couple of hours like that in Jonas's basement, playing Xbox, watching TV, until their brains fried. Jake kind of wished he still lived in Ithaca right then. He kind of wished he were right that minute back in Ithaca, on Buffalo Street, going down the hill on his bike. Buffalo Street was so steep you had to be nuts to go down it without your hand brakes on, but Jake liked to; he even liked to close his eyes, which was kind of close to committing suicide, it was such a nuts thing to do. He liked the way the wind felt rushing through his hair, drying off the sweat on his scalp, on his neck, in his armpits, as it flew up his shirtsleeves, billowing out his back like a sail. He liked flying blind.

Jonas's mom was going out for the night, but she ordered in Chinese food for them first. “You boys can have whatever you want,” she said. “Jo, there's money in the money jar.” So they ate spare ribs and egg rolls standing up, screaming at each other over the Xbox. They ate noodles straight out of the cartons, with their splintery wooden chopsticks, no one thinking to grab a plate. It was a good, boring time, until the hours passed and they were ready to go to the party, where there were girls and things could possibly change.

So they walked up the hill en masse to Olivia's, running into Arthur Gladstone and his band of freaks on the way. Arthur was old-school punk: dog collar, Sex Pistols T-shirt, boots with chains. It was sort of funny, Jake thought, how there was always a small group of hippies and punks, greasers, too, wherever you went to school. Like once the stuff got in the water it was inevitable that a few kids would be born every year beamed up from another era. In Ithaca there was a guy who'd tattooed every inch of his body, including his entire face. And he was a dad! Jake had seen him pushing a stroller on the Commons, his baby's cheeks as fresh and white as a pork bun. Did the kid puzzle over all his father's ink? Or did he just figure, that's my dad? Maybe Jake's own offspring would be obsessed with ancient Xbox games and would spend their time sitting around arguing about them, which ones rocked and which ones sucked, the way his dad and his college friends would sit around fighting about Bob Dylan albums. Some of Arthur's posse didn't even go to Wildwood—they went to Kennedy, the local public high school, and two of those dudes wore Mohawks. Jake's six-year-old baby sister wore dog collars and even she knew she was wearing them as a joke.

“Coco has an instinctive, irreverent, jocose flair for the burlesque,” Henry once said, solemnly. “Someday I shall marry her.”

Dream on, Jake had thought. But he said nothing.

“It's not happening,” said Arthur, in dint of a greeting.

“What?” said McHenry. “What's not happening, you fascist fuck?”

“Olivia's parents decided to go to the country and to bring Olivia, so they can all eat family dinner.” Arthur sneered and spat on the sidewalk. “She's failing math again.” He was wearing purple eye shadow, and for a minute Jake expected the spit to come out pink and blue, but it didn't.

“Bummer,” said McHenry. He turned to his boys. “Now what?”

There wasn't much else to do if there was no party. Jake mentally consulted the express bus schedule. He was a twenty-minute walk from the closest stop.

“Daisy Cavanaugh said we could all come to her place. Her folks are in Cyprus avoiding taxes,” said Arthur.

“Daisy Cavanaugh is in eighth grade,” said McHenry in disgust. “She's a middle school pig and a slut,” he added.

Jake didn't know Daisy Cavanaugh. He lifted an eyebrow at Henry.

Henry shrugged, his skateboarder's hair touching his shoulders as they rose. “Aww, she's all right,” he said to McHenry. “She's got a nice house,” he said to Jake.

“McMansion,” said Arthur. “Fucking movie theater in the basement, backyard pool. Her father is heir to some label fortune.”

“Label fortune?” said Jake.

“You know, like Calvin Klein? The labels?” said Arthur.

Davis said, “We've got nothing better to do. We've got nowhere else to go.”

“Ain't that the truth,” said McHenry. He and Davis high-fived.

They followed Arthur and his freak squad to the Cavanaughs'.

D
aisy Cavanaugh's house was one of the biggest houses in Riverdale. It was white, modern; each of its three glassy levels seemed to rise out at some new angle to better capture a view of the Hudson. It was almost as if someone had moved the house east from California, it had so little in common with the surrounding Tudors and neo-Georgians. The place was an advertisement for itself.

It wasn't that steep a climb up the road, but McHenry kept pounding his chest and coughing. As he went, he kept saying, “Got to lay off the stogies,” which Jake took as an affectation, although maybe it wasn't; maybe, at seventeen, McHenry had already totaled his lungs. They could hear music, really loud music, rocking out, and the blue light of the first level of the house glowed like there was a swimming pool inside of it, even though everyone said the swimming pool was out back. The party was downstairs. The main entrance to the house was farther up the road. This bottom tier was where the garage was, the little movie theater Arthur had mentioned, the playroom, and the wet bar. The sauna. The changing room that led out to the pool. Henry explained all of this to Jake. He'd been there once, Henry said, when the Cavanaughs threw a retirement party for some kindergarten teacher that he and Daisy had suffered through during different years, and all her ex-pupils and their families had been invited to send her off.

McHenry went in first and scoped the place, while the boys huddled together on the road, Arthur passing around a joint. It was getting cold outside, even though it was May. The wind was whipping across the river, and Jake half wished he was home, watching a movie. Arthur and his friends weren't exactly mesmerizing conversationalists, and the rest of the guys had all pretty much run out of shit to say. So they stood, hands in pockets, shifting their weight, eyeing each other, bouncing on their toes. Davis was on his cell phone texting around, looking for other action, in case this party was officially over.

“Maya and Chloe are at Chloe's highlighting their hair. Cantor and a bunch of dudes are in the East Village at the Blue and Gold, but how the hell would we get there? Josh says there's a crew hanging on Park Avenue. Been there.” And then, turning to Django: “I dunno. Maybe we should have stayed in town.” He was fast on that thing.

“So let's go back,” said Django, who was kind of nerdy and hardly talked, unless he was talking to Davis. “I'm down with that.”

Jake had turned to Henry and whispered, “I think I'm going to head home,” when a Lexus sedan pulled up behind them. Luke, the fucker, was driving. Audrey was sitting outside on the windowsill of the passenger seat, her butt resting in the tight little hammock of her black jeans, beating a drumbeat on the roof of the car with her fists. “Aloha, boys,” she said, as Luke, grinning, pulled past them and into the driveway.

McHenry came outside then with a thumb up. “There's beers inside,” he said. When he passed Luke, who was getting out of the car, they bumped fists (they hung out sometimes, a fact that upped McHenry's ante, which he was well aware of), and then Luke went around to Audrey's side and sort of swung her out of the window. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, clinging like a koala cub, and he carried her into the house.

Henry looked at Jake looking at Audrey.

“Not in this lifetime,” said Henry.

“Shut up,” said Jake.

There was a moment between them; there had never been a moment between them before.

Then Henry said, “C'mon man, the dude says there's beers inside.” He kind of patted Jake on his shoulder and then they followed the rest of the guys, who were already trailing after McHenry into the house.

Inside, the foyer was large and white with a double-height ceiling, and Jake could see big pieces of art hanging in the living room, which was off to the right. He could see bright copper walls in the dining room, which was off to the left. There was a long, gracious staircase heading up to the bedrooms.

“Downstairs,” said Henry, gently now, leading him.

McHenry had already disappeared down the stairs. The floors were pickled white. How did they keep this house so bright and clean? Jake wondered, feeling like his mother's son, hating himself for wondering. He followed Arthur. Then Davis and Jonas and Django followed him, and Henry and James brought up the rear, the two of them twinning the way they sometimes did, heads together, leaving everyone out, probably talking about him, Jake thought, and then killed the thought because it was stupid and would get him nowhere. As they went down the stairs, they passed a couple of couples heading up to the bedrooms: newbie couples, hooking up. Jake wanted to call ahead, to ask McHenry if he'd seen Audrey, if he'd seen her and Luke go up those stairs, but he knew better than to open himself to shit like that.