The Lost Family

by Jenna Blum

  Elsbeth hadn’t been sure whether this command was a concession or a way to make sure all her embarrassing rolls and bulges were covered; June’s latest purchase was a white calf-length thing with tiered ruffles. Elsbeth had yanked it off its hanger and on over her head, then gone to her own room, where she sat eating Doritos and Bacos from her stash in the roof of her old dollhouse. Both foods would have horrified Peter and June had they known about them, for different reasons. Elsbeth had crunched all the Bacos straight from their jar.

  Now in the back seat of the family Volvo, Elsbeth regretted it: her stomach beneath June’s dress pooched out like the bellies of the Ethiopian orphans in the Save the Children commercials; she felt fatter and more uncomfortable than ever. It was about 800 degrees and 900 percent humidity, so hazy that Elsbeth could barely see the steel web of the George Washington Bridge, and the air conditioner of the old Volvo, a hand-me-down from Sol, was broken. Elsbeth tugged the elastic neckline of June’s dress down around her shoulders. On June, who was tall and angular and looked, despite her new perm, like Christie Brinkley, the dress was a Grecian column. On Elsbeth, it made her look like a sturdy peasant about to stomp a tub of grapes. Elsbeth pulled the neckline down more, beneath her clavicle, and fanned herself with her hand.

  They were almost to the tollbooths now, inching forward in a metal sea of vehicles all doing the same thing. Waves of heat shimmered from hoods and roofs; radios babbled from everywhere, Spanish music, Casey Kasem’s Top 40, 1010 WINS. They were in an official heat wave, with dangers of a brownout in the greater metropolitan area; tempers were short all over. Elsbeth’s parents were no exception. “I hate these command performances,” June was complaining. “Especially with Sol’s artsy-fartsy crowd.”

  Peter tried to cut into the left lane—his trick was to look for the line with trucks in it, since the length of one eighteen-wheeler equaled four cars, and technically, this meant they would reach the toll faster. “Don’t even think abouddit, cocksucker!” yelled the driver in the Honda next to them, and shot Peter the finger.

  “Same to you,” said June and returned the gesture.

  “June,” said Peter. “Is that really the brightest thing to do when we are completely boxed in?”

  June lit a cigarette. “I didn’t want to just let him get away with it,” she muttered, “unlike some people.”

  They rolled forward three inches and stopped. teaneck, Elsbeth read off a nearby sign: green, light blue, navy, yellow, light blue, mustard yellow, orange. Those were the colors of the letters—it was a little habit she had, a trick she used to distract herself when the situation she was stuck in seemed unbearable.

  “I don’t see why you and Elsbeth couldn’t go without me,” said June. “You know they don’t really want to see me.”

  “I know nothing of the sort,” said Peter. “They want to see you very much. They want to see us as a family and know we are happy.”

  “Ah,” said June, “right,” and she ashed out the window and pulled the pink silk shell beneath her power suit—which she had worn today out of habit, Elsbeth guessed, since she wouldn’t be showing any houses—away from her breastbone. “You mean they want to see a good return on their investment.” she said.

  “June,” said Peter. “You know that is not fair.”

  “I know nothing of the sort,” June said, mimicking Peter’s slightly clipped accent—what Elsbeth’s friend Liza called his Oh Captain, My Captain voice. “Your dad’s so Von Trapp,” Liza had observed one night when Liza and Veronica—Very—and Elsbeth were sitting around the kitchen table, watching Peter make them grilled Gruyère and chutney sandwiches. “Except blond, and the geriatric version. Still, I’d do him,” which had made all the girls squeal and Elsbeth shove Liza so hard she fell off her chair.

  Peter sighed and shifted to take his handkerchief out of his trousers pocket; he was sweating, which Elsbeth knew he hated. It didn’t help that he never, ever wore short-sleeved shirts because of his tattoo.

  “June,” he said, “even if what you are saying were true—which it is not; I know Sol and Ruth can be difficult, but they do care for you, in their fashion, very much. But even if it were true, what would you have me do? We do owe them, you know.”

  “Yes,” said June. “I am all too aware, Pete, that what I make doesn’t cover us. I am painfully conscious of Sol’s contributions to our household for taxes and braces and such. But that’s the irony, don’t you see? If I didn’t have to deal with these interruptions, I could pull in enough that we might not need him.”

  “I fail to see that one day makes such a difference,” said Peter.

  “Wake up, pal,” yelled a driver behind them and lay on his horn. Peter lifted a hand and moved the Volvo forward another half-foot.

  “It can make all the difference,” said June. “One property, if it’s the right one, could keep us for a year. And that five-bedroom on Upper Watchung, with the tennis court—its open house is today, and I’m missing it. It makes me sick, Pete. Sick!”

  “Will your boss not stand in for you? What’s his name, Hamilton?”

  “Harrison. He is, but . . .” June let out a stream of smoke and threw herself back against the seat. “First of all, I don’t want to split the commission.”

  “He must be a slave driver if he makes you do all the work and then takes half the commission for one day. Frankly, I think he works you too hard in general.”

  June sat up a little straighter. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean you work nights, weekends, at his beck and call seven days a week. He crooks a finger, and you come running. It seems excessive.”

  “Look who’s talking,” said June, and then there was a silence in the Volvo, if being surrounded by a thousand other people’s engines and voices and music could be called that. Peter’s dependence on Sol as well as his wife, since Peter could no longer work, was something he despised even more than perspiring.

  “Sorry,” said June. “That was uncalled for. I’m just so damned hot. It’s a furnace in here.” She leaned over to turn up the dashboard fan all the way. Heat blasted into the car, flipping Elsbeth’s carefully feathered bangs back from her face.

  “Mom,” she said.

  “Elsbeth,” said June. She sighed. “Besides, Pete,” she said, “it’s hard to make a name for yourself as a woman in this industry. In any industry. To get half as far as a man, you have to work twice as hard.”

  From what Elsbeth could see of her dad’s face in the rearview, he seemed as if he might concede the point—he looked tired, which worried Elsbeth, as the day’s festivities hadn’t even really begun—but then they crept, thank God, into the shadow of the tollbooths, and Peter became preoccupied with digging out correct change. George Washington Bridge, Elsbeth said to herself. GWB. Green, brown, orange. Peter tossed coins into the basket and maneuvered into the traffic on the bridge; June lit another cigarette. Elsbeth blinked up at the mighty girders, then turned to look for the tiny city on her right. NYC, where she had been born: orange, yellow, yellow-orange. She was relieved to be on the bridge at last; it meant the drive was halfway over, even if things generally got worse on the other side.

  * * *

  Because of the traffic, which didn’t really lighten until they got out of the Bronx, they reached Larchmont a little past two, which meant—by Elsbeth’s estimate—that most of Sol and Ruth’s guests would be well into the cheese, dips, and cocktails part of the program, and the maid, Bertha, would be setting up for lunch. Indeed, the motor court was full, and Peter had to park back by the road, next to one of the shining, canted sheets of rock that protruded through the ground. They got out of the Volvo—ker-chunk, ker-chunk, went the doors, a sound that hit Elsbeth’s stomach with dread; now there was no way out. The next few hours would be a hell of discomfort: Peter blotting his forehead and responding politely to Papa Sol, who would be halfway into a bottle of Cutty Sark and show-off mode; June smiling brightly and escaping as often as she could to check me
ssages on her brand-new mobile phone; Elsbeth trying to avoid her grandparents’ friends, who meant well but, when they couldn’t avoid talking to her, asked questions that were all but unanswerable like “So, how’s school?” or “What do you kids do for fun these days?”

  The Rashkins slogged up the driveway, the tar soft underfoot, water running down the rock faces, the air smelling of minerals and humidity. Elsbeth loved the property, which had been an enchanted playground to her when she was little: the shining boulders she could climb on, the waterfall chattering into its secret pool, the flowering shrubs Ruth and the ancient gardener, Yoshi, tended so Sol could photograph them with his special telephoto lens. And the pool. Elsbeth looked longingly at it as she and Peter and June wended through the car maze in the motor court; it gleamed aqua in its grassy setting, beneath the tall oaks. Come in, it whispered, get cool! Elsbeth loved the water; beneath it she was not fat but weightless, agile as a mermaid.

  But— “There you are,” called Ruth from the terrace, and “Solly? Sol! They’re here.” There would be no swimming until after lunch. Elsbeth’s parents were already ascending the rock steps, Peter in the lead and June next, her order floating back to Elsbeth: “Pull that collar up, young lady; did you think I wouldn’t notice? And suck in your stomach!” Elsbeth yanked the dress’s neckline even lower, to just above her bra, and, although she knew it was childish, stuck her tongue out at her mother’s bony back.

  Then, “Hello! Hello!” the Rashkins cried, younger and older generations, embracing and kissing each other on the cheeks. Sol had abandoned his guests temporarily to greet them; he stood by Ruth’s side, highball glass clinking with ice. Every time Elsbeth saw her grandparents, they seemed to have shrunk a little: Sol melting ever more downward, as though he were made of wax, and Ruth drying out, like a tiny mummy. Sol was oxblood-colored to Elsbeth, although maybe that was just because that was his skin tone in summer, when he fished and golfed as well as drank. Nana Ruth was a soft, dusty beige. “Bubbeleh,” she cried, crushing Elsbeth’s head to her little birdy chest, her arms shaking with effort. She smelled of mothballs, Shalimar, and Pepsodent. “My shayne madele. Let me look at you,” she said, as if it had been years since Elsbeth had last seen her instead of only a few weeks. She smoothed Elsbeth’s bangs off her forehead, the better to see Elsbeth’s whole face.

  “Nannnaaaaa,” said Elsbeth, ducking away, “don’t, please,” but then she had to deal with Sol, who pinched her chin in one hand and covered her cheeks with kisses that smelled of whitefish dip and Scotch.

  “What a girl,” he boomed, as if the terrace were packed with an invisible audience of dozens; “what a beautiful girl, isn’t she beautiful?” and to Elsbeth’s embarrassment he started to cry. Every time Papa Sol saw her, this happened, and Elsbeth was never sure what she had done to cause it or if there were anything she could do to prevent it.

  “She looks more like Rivka every day,” Sol said to Peter, who nodded. Sol always said this too; he meant Elsbeth’s real grandmother, Peter’s mother, who had died of pneumonia before the Nazis could kill her. Elsbeth had seen a photo of her only once, a lady who looked both dumpy and regal, with her stocky build and crown of braids. Of course Elsbeth would look like her, instead of like her own mother, or even her beautiful little half sisters—the twins, Vivian and Ginger, named after movie stars.

  “Don’t just stand there, you people, you’re letting all the air out,” said Sol, switching abruptly from sentimental mode. He turned and stumped into the kitchen, Peter following. Elsbeth and Ruth and June stayed on the terrace, June lighting a cigarette.

  “Around the child?” said Ruth to June, waving at the smoke. She smiled at Elsbeth. “Look at you, so big—every time I see you, you grow another foot. What are you eating?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but June said, “I’m trying to get her to stick to fruit and vegetables, but I know she sneaks junk,” and Elsbeth said, “I do not,” and Ruth said, “Sha, she’s a growing girl, it’s good to have a little extra padding, you never know what could happen,” and June said, “Maybe in wartime Europe that was true, but we know better now, Ruth; it’s not healthy to carry too much weight,” and Ruth said, “She’s just big-boned, aren’t you, darling. How much do you weigh now?” she asked, and Elsbeth said, “Nanaaaaa,” and June said, “About ten pounds more than she should,” and Elsbeth muttered, “Screw you,” and June said, “What was that?” and her mobile phone rang. She took it out of her purse and pulled up the antenna; it was big and black, the size of a brick. “I’ve got to grab this, excuse me,” she said and clicked away down the steps on her high heels. “June Rashkin,” she said.

  “What is that contraption?” said Ruth.

  “That’s her mobile phone,” Elsbeth explained. “Her boss gave it to her.” And indeed Elsbeth was pretty sure that was who June was talking to, Harrison, a man Elsbeth did not trust in the slightest. Harrison used her name all the time when he spoke to her, the way a soap opera actor or car salesman would: “How are you today, Elsbeth? You look wonderful today, Elsbeth! Elsbeth, isn’t your mom the greatest?” When he smiled, he seemed to have at least three rows of teeth, like a shark.

  “Oy,” said Ruth, as she and Elsbeth watched June pace among the cars in the motor court, phone pressed to her ear, looking like Realtor Barbie from this height. Ruth tsked and turned to Elsbeth. “You must be starving after that long trip,” she said, as if Elsbeth and her parents had dragged themselves across the Russian steppes instead of driving from New Jersey. “Would you like a snack before lunch? I got the caviar spread you like, from Zabar’s. And how about a nice cold drink? Iced tea?”

  “I’m fine, Nana,” said Elsbeth. “You go ahead, I’ll be in in a minute. I forgot something in the car.”

  “It can’t wait?” Elsbeth vehemently shook her head. “All right, darling, don’t be long,” Ruth said, and went into the house. Elsbeth heaved a sigh of relief. There was nothing in the Volvo she needed; she had just wanted another minute to herself, or as many as possible, before she had to go in. For this moment, it was just as she liked it: she was alone on the terrace except for her mother far below and the cicadas like maracas in the trees.

  * * *

  But—there was somebody else outside after all, Elsbeth discovered to her dismay, somebody who might have witnessed the whole humiliating arrival scene. There was a crashing in the bushes on the far side of the terrace, near the bonsai grove, and from them a man emerged, zipping his pants. Unaware of Elsbeth’s presence, he yanked up the fly of his white jeans and, from the breast pocket of the Cuban shirt he wore, which was misbuttoned so one half of the bottom hung lower than the other, he slid a pack of cigarettes. Elsbeth felt instant sympathy for him. She too often left the house with her blouse fastened the wrong way, or socks that were different colors, or once, most embarrassingly, her skirt tucked into the back of her underpants. The man gazed around as he shook out the match he’d lit his cigarette with, and he looked startled when he saw her.

  Then: “Heeeeeey,” he said, as if he and Elsbeth were old friends, “how’s it going?” and he held out his cigarette pack toward her. He smiled and shook it a little as if enticing a squirrel with nuts: Come on, come and get it. He had a friendly, very tan face, brown eyes, and wavy dark hair, his open collar showing a patch of fur on his chest. Like Peter Brady, Elsbeth imagined telling her friends later, if Peter Brady were older, maybe twenty-five. And although Elsbeth had always thought Greg was the cutest Brady brother, she revised this opinion instantly.

  “No, thanks, I don’t smoke,” said Elsbeth. She sucked in her stomach and flipped her hair back behind her shoulders. “Not because I’m too young, of course. Because it’s bad for you.”

  The man shrugged and tossed his cigarette pack to the coffee table. “You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “But you’ve got to have some bad habits, right? Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do,” and he smiled at Elsbeth. His teeth were very white and straight.

  �
��I guess,” she said. “Were you—um, urinating in the bushes?”

  He said somberly, “I might have been watering the plantings, yes.” He winked at her. “Don’t tell anybody, okay, Charlie?”

  “Of course not,” she said, and then, “Why did you call me Charlie?”

  “Isn’t that the perfume you’re wearing?”

  Elsbeth’s cheeks felt suddenly much hotter than was warranted even by the temperature of the day. “How did you know?”

  “I’m a connoisseur,” he said, and then, pointing his cigarette at her, “Plus, you look like a Charlie.”

  “I do?” Elsbeth said. She was thrilled; she had always hated her name, which Peter and June had chosen out of a phone book in the maternity ward because, they said, they wanted her to be completely her own person. They had closed their eyes and opened the book and put their finger on the Es, and here Elsbeth was, stuck with the name of an old lady, somebody who wore orthopedic shoes; a name that dragged itself along: Elssss–BETH. Elssss–BETH. What her dad called her, Ellie, was not much better, and his childhood pet name for her, Ellie-Belly, was, as it drew attention to the part of her body she loathed most, worst of all.

  “My actual name’s Elsbeth,” she said. “But I like Charlie.”

  “Elsbeth,” the man repeated, and Elsbeth was impressed: he neither mispronounced it, the way most people did upon first hearing it—Elizabeth? Liz Beth?—nor said how unusual, how interesting. “I think Charlie suits you better,” said the man, “and not because you look like a boy.” He blew out smoke. “Do you mind if I call you Charlie?”