The Lost Family

by Jenna Blum

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Peter. “It’s standard country-club fare. Probably safest to go with the scallops.”

  “Dad,” said Elsbeth, “you know you’re not supposed to have shellfish.”

  Peter wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Saysh who?” he said in his gangster voice.

  “Says your cardiologist.”

  “Cardiologist, schmardiologist,” said Peter. “Tonight I’m living on the edge.”

  “Dad,” said Elsbeth again and was about to argue further when their waiter finally showed up. To Elsbeth’s surprise she recognized him: Michael Dermont, or Mikey D, the kids called him at school, a basketball and football player she’d had a mild crush on pre-Julian. He was tall—about six-four—with nice round green eyes, brown feathered hair, a pillowy lower lip. “Don’t even bother,” Liza had reported, after a failed attempt with Mikey D at a pool party; “he doesn’t fool around. He says it’s because he’s Catholic, but clearly, if he turned down the tatas, he’s gay.”

  “How are you folks this evening?” he said, setting a basket of rolls and breadsticks on the table. “’Sup,” he added to Elsbeth.

  “Hey, Mike,” she said. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

  “Just started this summer. Saving up for Holy Cross.” He took out his pen and pad. “What can I get you folks?”

  The Rashkins chose their drinks: gin and tonic for Peter, white wine spritzer for June, Diet Coke with lemon for Elsbeth. “I’m ready to order, too,” she announced—all the better to hasten this evening along. Her parents looked startled, but Peter requested his scallops, compensating with no butter or sour cream on his baked potato, and June a chef’s salad. Elsbeth smirked: for all the pinwheels of meat and cheese in that dish, not to mention hard-boiled eggs, June might as well have ordered a hoagie.

  “I’ll have . . .” Elsbeth paused, running a long nail down the menu. She was wearing a hot-pink tank dress and rhinestone bangles on both arms; she had bleached her hair nearly white with Sun-In, and Liza had French-braided it, teasing the bangs into a pouf. Elsbeth could feel Mike watching her as she pretended to consider her dinner; he was nothing compared to Julian, of course, but it was nice to get some practice. “Green salad,” she said finally, “dressing on the side.”

  “That’s it?” said Peter.

  “I had a big lunch.”

  “Ha,” said June, as Mike took their menus and loped away. “I know the real reason.” She nudged Elsbeth and nodded toward the bar, where Mike was placing their orders. “He’s pretty cute.”

  “Are you for real?” said Elsbeth. “He’s a total Clydesdale.”

  June glanced at Peter, but he didn’t appear to have heard; he was gazing out the panorama window toward the city. “A horse?”

  “A big galoot.”

  “A what?”

  “A dork. An oily bohunk. All he does is play football and study.”

  “Are you hearing this, Pete?” said June to Peter, who cleared his throat and knocked his knuckles on the table. “A little more studying wouldn’t hurt you, young lady,” June added.

  “Mother. It’s July.”

  “Yes, and next year it’s either summer school for you or a job.”

  “Whatever,” said Elsbeth. “Excellent birthday conversation. Thanks. It’s been real.”

  June put her cigarette to her mouth, then lowered it. “Shoot, I forgot to ask for an ashtray,” she said and turned toward the bar, but Mike had gone into the kitchen now. “Anyway, he seems perfectly adorable to me.”

  “Everyone seems adorable to you.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Is there something you want to say to me, Elsbeth?”

  “There’s nothing I want to say to you, Mother.”

  “Elsbeth,” said Peter, deciding suddenly to rejoin the world, “be nice to your mom.”

  If only you knew, Elsbeth wanted to tell him. Wake up, Dad, wake the fuck up! But she prayed he’d never find out; if Peter discovered the truth about June, it might literally kill him. When Elsbeth thought about the Peter of her childhood—her impossibly tall, golden dad—she wanted simultaneously to shake him and to throw herself in front of him, arms spread, so nothing terrible could happen to him ever again.

  They fell silent as Mike returned with their drinks and Elsbeth’s salad. Elsbeth sipped her Diet Coke and shook out her napkin. “Oh no,” she cried.

  “What is it?” said Peter.

  “They put dressing on it. I asked for it on the side.”

  “Waiter,” called Peter.

  “No, that’s okay, Dad, don’t worry about it,” said Elsbeth.

  “Are you sure? It is their job to fix it.”

  “It’s fine,” said Elsbeth. “Seriously.”

  She pushed the croutons and Thousand Island aside and began cutting the lettuce, cucumber, shredded carrot, and sole cherry tomato into ribbons. “Aha!” said June. “Now I get how you’ve lost so much weight. You look terrific.”

  “Thanks,” said Elsbeth. She speared one sliver of carrot on the tines of her fork.

  Peter peered at her over his bifocals. “You do look different,” he agreed. “I like how you have done your hair. But you are a little too thin.”

  There was nothing more reassuring Elsbeth could hear. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Peter frowned. “You are maybe overdoing your diet,” he said. “Here, have some bread.” He pushed the basket toward her.

  “Leave her alone, Pete,” said June. “It never hurts a girl to have lost a few extra pounds. Insurance, right?” She winked at Elsbeth. It was so unfair—no matter how old June got, whether she had age spots or crow’s-feet, her eyes were so blue; she was still so cataclysmically beautiful. “So, it’s not the waiter. Who is it?”

  “Who’s what?”

  “The guy,” said June. “There must be somebody.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “Ah, come on,” said Peter, “you must have to fight them off with a stick.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Who gave you that, then?” said June, leaning over and lifting the medallion off Elsbeth’s breastbone. Elsbeth jerked away before June could see what it was: her birthday present from Liza and Very, a love charm they had purchased at the witchcraft store on Bloomfield Avenue. “See,” said Liza, tracing the spiraling tiny letters, “it says ‘meat of my meat, flesh of my flesh, love of my heart’—or something like that. It’s Latin. But anyway, if you wear this all the time, even in the shower, and think about Julian—he’ll be yours. He won’t stand a chance.”

  “Get off,” said Elsbeth. “Don’t touch me!”

  June recoiled. She looked away across the dining room. “All right,” she said, and her voice was quiet, without the teasing tone she had adopted all evening. “I’m sorry.”

  Elsbeth glared at her salad. She had gone too far, she could tell by how June’s lips were pressed as she opened her cigarette case, and she knew she should apologize. But then June lit a Marlboro, and it was as though she had thrown a cherry bomb into the room: “Hey,” the bartender called, “you can’t do that in here,” and he pointed to the large plaque over the door—no smoking—and the only other diners, a couple near the far window, started flapping and yelling, “Put it out, put it out!” and Elsbeth saw that the man was attached to an oxygen tank. “For God’s sake, June,” said Peter, and June said, “For God’s sake yourself, this is ridiculous,” and Mikey D was hurrying toward them with a clean saucer, saying, “Here, ma’am, use this,” and June was saying, “Is everywhere a police state nowadays?” Elsbeth took advantage of the situation to slip away to the ladies’ room. She didn’t have to throw up, she’d barely eaten anything, but she sat on a wicker chaise and counted off minutes on her Swatch, for which June and Peter had given her a new white band with rhinestones. It was seven thirty now, and with luck her parents’ meals would have arrived by the time Elsbeth got back to the table, in the magic way of food appearing when you went to the ladies’ room; by the time this charade w
as over and they were home and June had either gone out again or shut herself in her bedroom and Peter was occupied in the kitchen so Elsbeth could sneak out, through the front door which nobody ever used, and called Liza to meet her at the bus stop, it would be about ten. The night would be just starting in the city, the preparties cranking up in the places they would hunt for Julian, where they might run into him accidentally on purpose, at Nell’s or Limelight, Odeon or MK.

  * * *

  But it wasn’t until August that Elsbeth saw Julian again, during their next shoot—which Julian decided should be in the city. He gave Elsbeth an address in the East Village, where she had never been; she took the subway from the Port Authority, although June had always told her this was how nice suburban girls got drugged and kidnapped for the slave trade. At West Fourth Street Elsbeth walked across Washington Square, where she then left familiar territory and promptly got lost. She had to ask a punk with safety pins through his eyebrows how to find St. Mark’s Place.

  Julian was sitting on the stoop of a decrepit green-painted building, slumped on the top step as if he was asleep; his head was down, and a cigarette burned unnoticed between his fingers. Was he sick—or drunk? But as Elsbeth approached, he glanced over and smiled. He looked terrible, his hair lank, dark smudges beneath his eyes. “Hey, Charlie,” he said, “you made it.” He stood, hauling himself up on the railing; he was wearing a paisley shirt and shorts today. “Do you mind if we get started right away? I don’t want to lose the sunset.”

  “Sure,” said Elsbeth, following him into the building. It looked condemned from the outside, and it wasn’t much better within; there was a freight elevator, which Julian ignored in favor of the stairs, and the walls were patched and the lightbulbs in little cages. Elsbeth watched Julian’s calves working as they climbed and noticed for the first time that the backs of his knees were also studded with the silver burn dots. She shivered despite the dank uriney heat in the stairwell. “Is this where your studio is?” she asked; “where are we going?” They reached the last landing and Julian pushed open the door and said, “Onto the roof.”

  They were meeting later than usual, almost eight; Julian had said he wanted to take advantage of something he called Magic Hour. The magical Mr. Mistoffelees, thought Elsbeth. She looked around. Some city rooftops had decks or gardens—there was a whole other life going on in the sky—but this one had just sticky tar underfoot, an air duct, and one of those circular water tanks with a conical hat. All around them were windows, and Elsbeth felt the weight of eyes.

  “Should I do the usual?” she asked, meaning take off her clothes, and Julian, who was attaching weighted bags to the legs of a tripod, said, “Sure—just put your clothes in the stairwell if you don’t want to get them dirty.” He returned to flipping levers on his Nikon, and Elsbeth crouched behind the water tank, taking off her new silk blazer and bustier and white stirrup pants.

  She looked to Julian for direction. He was fumbling with a small canister he’d taken from an Igloo cooler. His hands were shaking; he dropped the film and said “Fuck!” Elsbeth stood and waited, hoping Julian would notice her hair, which she’d crimped again and pulled back on either side with jeweled combs, and also that she’d lost more weight since their last shoot. A couple of times in July, he’d mentioned it, saying, “Charlie, are you dieting on me?” and, once, “You’re getting positively skinny, girl! Whatever kick you’re on, you might want to dial it back a little.”

  Now he said, “Okay, I think we’re good to go.” Elsbeth leaned back against the water tank, hooking her elbows over its ladder rungs and arcing her back so her ribs would be on display. She didn’t have much left in the way of breasts, which was too bad, but there wasn’t any jelly on the belly either. She barely had a single stomach, let alone a double one.

  “That’s actually a little stiff, Charlie,” Julian called. “You don’t have to pose, remember? Just do your thing.”

  Elsbeth walked to the edge of the roof, holding her breath out of habit. She propped herself against the cement wall, peered over one shoulder at Julian, and said, “I went to Limelight last weekend. You go there sometimes, right?”

  “What?” Julian said. He sounded irritable. “Hang on, Charlie. I’ve got to make a couple of adjustments here.”

  Elsbeth looked down into the East Village to give him a little time. This was not her parents’ New York—Broadway plays, the bandleader nightclubs, and Masha’s; nor was it Sol and Ruth’s New York of fund-raisers, galleries, and museums. This was the city Elsbeth was coming to know: punks with mohawks, drag queens, clubs. The last time Elsbeth and Liza had gone to Limelight, using the fake IDs Liza had gotten, they’d worn lace-up stiletto boots and petticoats like lampshades; Liza’s hair was spiked to new heights and she’d drawn an upside-down cross in black eyeliner by one eye. The bouncer had moved the rope aside immediately to let them into the old church. Inside, from the chalk-smelling mist from the smoke machines, a guy in a bomber jacket had materialized and shouted to Liza, Wan’ dance? Sure, Liza had yelled back, inaudible over the stomach-throbbing base of hip-hop, and disappeared. Elsbeth had pushed to the bar, where she nursed a gin and tonic and watched bodies flickering in the strobe lights. At one point she thought she saw Julian, in a black leather blazer and with a scruff of beard, but it turned out to be George Michael. That was cool but also beside the point, and when by midnight Liza had still not reappeared, Elsbeth had left and taken the last bus home.

  “Can you turn toward me, Charlie?” said Julian. “I want to see your face.” Click. Clickclickclick vsssh. “Okay, walk toward me a little ways,” he said, “I’m losing the light on your skin.” He bent over his camera. “I don’t know why the fuck they call it Magic Hour,” he muttered. “Nothing magic about it.” He moved the tripod a couple of inches. Clickclickclickclick.

  “Fuck,” he said. Click. Click. He yanked his hair, then pegged the film canister into the corner of the roof as if skipping a stone.

  “Fuck!” he yelled. “Fuckity fuck fuck. Fuck it. I’m fucked.” He lit a cigarette and removed his camera from its tripod; he was packing that away too, screwing down and folding in its legs, when he glanced up at Elsbeth.

  “Oh, Charlie,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m just ruined. They’ve ruined me,” and Elsbeth was about to ask, Who? when he added, “Let’s go get a drink.”

  * * *

  Julian marched back through the East Village and Washington Square Park, walking quickly, head down, a man on a mission. Elsbeth had difficulty keeping up, since she was wearing Liza’s gladiator sandals and the black leather thongs kept slipping down her calves. They passed the Pink Pussycat, where Elsbeth and Liza had purchased their bustiers; she was about to point this out to Julian when he buttonhooked right and all but dove into a tiny unmarked restaurant, its windows and doorway obscured with thick red velvet curtains. She hurried in after him.

  Inside the place had brick walls, plain white cloths, only about six tables. Elsbeth was disappointed; she had fantasized a first real date with Julian somewhere fancier, like Windows on the World or at least the Plaza. The maître d’ scurried toward them, a pigeon-shaped man in black trousers, white shirt, black vest.

  “Mr. Wilton,” he was saying, “so good to see you again, sir! What a pleasure.” He kissed his fingers and shook them at the ceiling. “That Times review of Luminous Beings! It is an honor to say I know you.”

  “Thanks, Luigi,” said Julian, who was possibly surveying the room, though it was hard to tell because he was wearing his Wayfarers. Luigi started to lead them to what Elsbeth recognized as the best table in the house: near the front door but not next to it, so they could see and be seen. But Julian headed toward the back.

  “I think something more secluded tonight, Luigi,” he said, “if you don’t mind.”

  “No, of course, Mr. Wilton, naturally you would want privacy, dining with such a charming companion,” said Luigi. He smiled at Elsbeth as he held her chair for her, but his expression changed to a ki
nd of surprise, and Elsbeth wondered whether she was overdressed for this tiny place in her bustier and stirrup pants or had tar on her arms from the roof or what.

  Julian slid into the booth side of the table, a two-top where Peter would not have seated anyone but his worst enemy: in the rear of the restaurant, near the hallway to the bathrooms. “Vodka, Luigi,” said Julian. “Double. On the rocks.”

  “Of course, Mr. Wilton. For you, Miss? Would you like menus?”

  “Jesus, Luigi, just bring drinks,” Julian said. “She’ll have what I’m having.”

  Luigi’s eyebrows climbed his forehead at this, but he said, “Very good, Mr. Wilton,” and bustled away.

  Julian scanned the room, then whipped his sunglasses off and tossed them on the tablecloth. Elsbeth could see the whole restaurant in the mirror behind his head; there wasn’t much to look at, only two other couples, even older than her parents, dressed for theater.

  Luigi returned with their drinks and a breadbasket, and Elsbeth’s stomach gurgled; the rolls were still warm, the butter flecked with sea salt. She pushed it away with two fingers and looked at Julian, who had already emptied his first glass. He shook the cubes in it: “Keep ’em coming, Luigi,” he said.

  Julian lowered his head into his hands. He needed a haircut; Elsbeth loved his long, dark curls, but it was getting out of control. Tentatively, she touched his arm. Julian jumped a mile. “What!” he said, bug-eyed.

  “Are you all right?” said Elsbeth. “You seem, no offense, a little freaked out.”

  “Ha!” said Julian. “Freaked out, yes, you could say that. I am definitely freaking the fuck out.” Another drink arrived, and he drained it and tapped the rim.

  “Is it them?” Elsbeth asked.

  “Who?” said Julian.

  “The ‘them’ from the roof,” said Elsbeth.

  Julian stared wildly around the restaurant. “Are they here? Did they follow us?” He gripped the sides of the table.

  “Who?” said Elsbeth.

  “You said them,” said Julian.

  “Because you did,” said Elsbeth; “you mentioned ‘them’ earlier, during our shoot.”