These Violent Delights

by Micah Nemerever

  “Oh! Thank goodness, I thought it was economics. That’s what Daddy does, something at the Treasury, and he despises it.”

  Joy was his age or even younger, but her clothes, like Julian’s, were refined and overly grown-up. She had a cashmere sweater tied around her shoulders and a red silk scarf folded over her dark hair. She would have given the impression of being older than her age if she hadn’t been a little frayed at the edges. The beds around her painted blue fingernails were chewed raw, and she had deep circles under her eyes that the layers of shadow and mascara didn’t quite conceal. She had a profound, elusive sadness about her, for all that she chatted and smoked and fawned on the dog in his lap. Paul caught himself failing to dislike her, somehow, even when she darted into the next lane without signaling.

  “I’m Jewish too,” she said, speeding past the car she’d been tailgating for half a mile. “Well, sort of—only a quarter, but it used to be ‘Grunwald,’ and around here that’s more than enough. It’s so much better in New York—I can only stomach coming here once or twice a year. I’d love to see Daddy more, but it’s about all I can take. The fewer people you talk to while you’re here, the happier you’ll be.”

  “I probably won’t talk to a lot of people outside Julian’s family,” said Paul, trying to conceal his dread. “So it should be fine.”

  Joy was visibly horrorstruck. She took a long drag from her cigarette to cover her silence.

  “He’s—warned you about them, hasn’t he?” she said carefully.

  Paul avoided her eyes. Instead he looked at the dog, which grinned up at him as its paws pressed into his thigh. He wasn’t sure if there was a correct way to pet dogs the same way there was with cats, so he patted its forehead gingerly with the tips of his fingers.

  “Of course,” he said. It was true in that he could read between the lines of what little detail Julian had ever given him, but he knew that this wasn’t what Joy meant.

  If Paul had expected anything at all of Julian’s hometown, it was that it would be something like Mount Lebanon—tonier and tidewater-flat, but built to welcome school buses and children’s bicycles. But those suburbs had fallen away behind them ages ago, treetops shining in the sun alongside the highway. For a long while afterward it was all farmland—lush orchards ringed by split-rail fences, verdant fields of what Joy identified as tobacco.

  Joy wasn’t forcing Paul to hold up his end of a conversation, which he slowly recognized as a deliberate kindness. She talked in fits and starts, amiable monologues about her parents or her boarding school that allowed replies but didn’t demand them. Her silences didn’t ask anything of him, which was hardly ever the case, even with people who knew him well.

  When they pulled off the highway, the country road followed the contour of the coast. The bay glinted in and out of view between houses that were now a little closer together, but Paul kept waiting in vain to encounter anything that resembled a town. There were no schools or baseball diamonds or even shopping plazas. There were only the driveways fanning out from the road, and at their ends the houses, bigger and more grandiose with every mile. The houses perched on their empty lawns like headstones, or else were cloaked in gardens so opulent and elaborate that they had to require an entire team of gardeners to maintain.

  “They’re not . . .” He grasped for a way to phrase the question that wouldn’t inadvertently insult her, then decided he was too desperate to care. “God, they’re not that kind of rich, are they?”

  Joy plainly had no idea what he was talking about, but that didn’t stop her from making a sympathetic face and guessing, far wide of the mark, at what might soothe him.

  “It’s climber central back there, that’s why it’s so gaudy and gross,” she said kindly. “But they’ve got a lot of real aristo neighbors to impress, so their house is nicer—you know, less tacky. The harpy queen has good taste, at least. Ugh, his dad would be hopeless without her, there’d be Corinthian columns on the gazebo . . .”

  The dog had been dozing, but it woke up with a reproachful yap when Paul miserably slid down in his seat.

  The car stopped at a driveway flanked by brick columns. If Paul’s hand hadn’t remembered the shape of Julian’s address so well, he would have been certain they were in the wrong place. The house wasn’t even visible from the road; the driveway plunged into a thick stand of pines, toward the water and out of sight. The iron gates sat open as if they were merely too polite to be closed. Joy turned up the drive without hesitation.

  The house was a regal colonial, red brick crisscrossed with ivy, with the expanse of Chesapeake Bay glimmering at its back. The front garden was bright with emerald grass and pearl-white starbursts of magnolias; beyond the house, the lot sloped down toward the water, where he could just make out the sun-painted mast of a sailboat.

  Paul would have been far happier if they had stopped at one of the garish houses farther up the road. However loathsome, those belonged to a kind of exuberance in plenty that he could nearly understand. The very tastefulness of this place made it far more offensive than if the Frommes had succumbed to new-money excess. It gave the impression that they breathed their wealth as carelessly as air.

  Joy’s car barely had a chance to idle before the front door flew open. Joy pushed her sunglasses up and waved, beaming; if she hadn’t, Paul might have mistaken Julian for one of his brothers. His hair was cut short and combed back from his face, ruining the fashionable length that had been nurtured by months of careful neglect. He was wearing crisp, summery, Kennedyish clothes Paul had never seen him in before, and with the alien mass of the house behind him, he looked for a moment like a stranger. Then he bounded down the steps like an eager kitten and the illusion shattered.

  Paul got out of the car quickly. Julian stopped short of embracing him; instead he pressed one hand between Paul’s shoulder blades, insistently, as if to hurry him along.

  “You’re just in time,” he said, so vehemently cheerful that Paul’s stomach dropped. “I’ve got everything ready—is that your only bag? Good—thank you for rescuing him, Joy, you’re an angel, come on inside and I’ll make you a drink—”

  Joy was in no particular rush, which clearly made Julian impatient. She struggled to hold the dog; it huffed and strained with wild eyes as if to break free and leap at Julian’s throat. “We can’t stay too terribly long,” she said. “I wish we could, but Daddy wanted to—”

  “Of course! Just one drink, as a thank-you present. I insist.” Julian smiled brilliantly and gave Paul an ungentle push in the direction of the door. “Oh, poor Sweetpea, I know, I’m being so mean ignoring you—I think we still have some of Tib’s old biscuits in the pantry . . .”

  The world had whirled into such frenetic activity that Paul had trouble taking it all in. He had the impression of a genteel front hallway—walls done up in white and robin’s-egg blue, hardwood floors finished with a dark soft patina as if they’d seen centuries of the same family’s footsteps. When Joy set the dog down, it danced around Julian’s ankles until he scooped it up and bounced it like an infant. Paul clung to his suitcase and looked from doorway to glass-transomed doorway, then up to the wrought-iron chandelier.

  A slim, middle-aged black woman was hurrying toward them, smoothing her gray dress as she walked. Her face was a mask of courteous alarm.

  “You were expecting visitors too,” she said to Julian, in a tone that suggested that the absence of a question mark was squarely his fault. “I apologize, I didn’t see it on the calendar—”

  “It must have slipped my mother’s mind,” said Julian brightly. “Joy’s only here for a little bit, just long enough for a drink, we shouldn’t get in the way.”

  “Of course—Miss Greenwood, always a pleasure.” The woman’s smile was fixed and despondent. “And this is . . . ?”

  Paul quickly let go of the suitcase handle and reached forward to shake her hand. She gave him a bewildered, pitying look before taking it.

  “Paul Fleischer,” he said, wondering ho
pelessly what he’d done wrong.

  “Cecilia Stanton.” She grasped his hand weakly and immediately let go; her eyes never left Julian’s face. “Julian,” she said delicately, “are you certain you remembered to let your mother know?”

  “I didn’t forget.” Julian handed the dog back to Joy, who had gone very pale. “Don’t worry about it, Ceci,” he added fondly. “We were just going to put him in the spare bed in my room, you don’t need to do a thing—I thought we’d just look in on Mother quickly, and then we’ll get out of your way . . .”

  Julian steered Paul up the hallway toward a set of French doors. Joy brushed apologetically past Cecilia and scrambled after them.

  “Julian.” She caught his arm and addressed him in an urgent whisper. “Julian, you didn’t, please tell me you didn’t—”

  Whatever was transpiring, Paul had little time and barely enough context to even follow along on the surface. But Joy understood it perfectly, and what he could see of her understanding filled him with dread.

  Julian looked at her impassively, then gave Paul a bracing smile.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you,” he said, and for a moment Paul couldn’t imagine, much less remember, that anything in the world existed outside the two of them.

  Then Julian rapped on the French doors and pushed them open before anyone could answer.

  Beyond the doors was a formal living room, simply furnished but so pristine that Paul could tell no child had ever set foot in it. Three people turned toward the disturbance in surprise, highball glasses clicking with ice. Two of them were women, both with doll-perfect sundresses and sculpted blond hair, but Paul knew Julian’s mother right away. There was an ineffable likeness, something in the proportions of her face, even though the individual features were dissimilar. Julian’s freckles came from her; she’d hidden hers under foundation, but they were still visible on her bare forearms. After a split second of incomprehension, she smiled, and the resemblance became unmistakable. It was the exact smile Julian wore when he was beside himself with fury.

  “Hey! Sorry to interrupt.” Julian slid his hand around Paul’s forearm and held tight. “Paul’s here. I thought we should say hello before I go get him settled in.”

  “Julian,” said Joy miserably, but she spoke so quietly that Julian could pretend not to hear her.

  The guests graced the intruders with tolerant smiles. Julian’s eyes left his mother just long enough to grin back, a boyish and blunt smile that didn’t suit him. He was telling them without words that nothing was out of the ordinary—that Paul was a duly invited guest rather than a grenade he’d thrown in ambush. The couple, of course, were integral to the plan. There had to be witnesses, or there would be no pressure on Mrs. Fromme to acquiesce.

  Mrs. Fromme’s blue eyes flitted toward Paul. One eyebrow lifted; she looked him up and down, the way she might look at the corpse of a deer that had thrown itself in front of her car.

  “My goodness.” She set her glass aside and swept to her feet. Her bared teeth glinted white. “You must forgive me. I had thought that was next week.”

  Paul had forgotten she would speak with an accent. Not unlike his father, she used overly precise facsimiles of acquired English consonants, the barely perceptible slowness belying decades of familiarity. The echo made her seem more human, but no less dangerous. He hadn’t given her much thought before, preoccupied with such garish imaginings of Julian’s father that she had seemed beside the point. For the first time he fully understood how little he really knew.

  “We decided he didn’t need his own guest room, remember? He’s a string bean,” he added to his mother’s guests, giving Paul’s arm a shake. “All you really need for this one is an umbrella stand.”

  “One of your prep-school friends, Julian?” the husband asked. He was younger than Mrs. Fromme, fresh-faced and doughy and faintly familiar, as if Paul had seen him on television without committing him to memory.

  “College, I think,” Mrs. Fromme corrected. She sidled gracefully past the coffee table to approach him. He kept hoping she would look away from him, or at least blink, but she was waiting for him to flinch first. “How nice to put a face to the name at last, after all your letters.”

  The latent threat was so subtle and elegant that Paul had to admire it. I know what you are. I’ve seen you all along. She clasped both hands around his, her skin cool and smooth as alabaster. It took all his willpower not to shy away.

  “I—thanks, I’ve—heard a lot about you, too.”

  Out of sight of her guests, her smile had faded. He tried to withdraw his hand, but she didn’t let go.

  “Ça va, Maman?” said Julian quietly, and she looked at him with such cold anger that it was a wonder he didn’t recoil.

  “I apologize for the confusion. I assure you it is not typical.” Her eyes snapped back to Paul; her voice was a perfect imitation of warmth, but there was no trace of the sentiment in her face. “Make yourself at home,” she said.

  Julian didn’t let go of him. When they were out of sight of the French doors, he slid his fingertips down Paul’s arm and laced their hands together.

  “Sorry about that.” For the first time since Paul had known him, he sounded as if he meant it. “They’ve been suspicious of you for weeks. They’d never have agreed to let you come if I’d asked them.”

  Joy had been walking ahead of them in a daze, but she stopped in her tracks and looked at Julian in horror.

  “He didn’t even know? Julian, for god’s sake, what’s the matter with you?”

  Her vehemence took Julian by surprise, but mildly. “I think he did,” he said, glancing at Paul as if to confirm. “Didn’t you? You knew this was enemy territory, you can’t have expected a fatted calf.”

  “You and your”—Joy let the dog squirm out of her arms and threw her entire weight into punching Julian’s shoulder—“your awful little games, you decide you’re going to show off and you do absolutely vile things to get the pieces into place—”

  “It was an emergency.” Paul said it less to calm her down than to remind himself that it was true. Julian needed him, had said so outright; anything else paled in comparison. “I’m fine, I’m not—”

  “Don’t coddle him,” said Joy, “or he’ll never remember he’s supposed to do better.”

  “Why would I bother to grow my own conscience when I’ve always got you around to pester me?” Julian gave Paul a wry sidelong look—girls, right?—and leaned down to gather up the dog.

  “Poor Sweetpea is starving,” he added. “I promised him a biscuit and everything. Let’s get you that drink, Joy, I think all of us could use one.”

  In his usual fashion, Julian had regained control of the situation without the slightest sign that he was doing it. He ushered Joy into the sun-bright kitchen, where she sat wearily on one of the ebony barstools. While Julian searched the pantry for a dog treat, Paul stole a glance into the back garden. Two boys careened around the sloping lawn and tossed a football, one about Laurie’s age, the other a few years younger. Both were blond and nondescript, dressed in khaki shorts and polo shirts. Beyond them there was indeed a gazebo—no Corinthian columns. The air was thick with honeysuckle and saltwater.

  This place was so far from his neighborhood’s careworn row houses and wood-paneled basements that it barely looked real. The adults in the living room, the younger brothers outside, even Julian and Joy, all looked less like people than like the sunny illustrations on his grandmother’s sewing-pattern envelopes. He was too overwhelmed by the perverse details to take them all in, so he fixed his attention, desperately and nonsensically, on a rack of fine-necked crystal wineglasses hanging above the kitchen island. Nobody should own that, he thought, with a fury so brutal and inexplicable that it made his head swim.

  Joy and Julian were bickering again, while she drank as if she’d been at the verge of dying of thirst. “When your father gets home, he’s going to crucify you,” she said. “Right there on the mast of the sailbo
at.”

  “Not in front of the Congressman, he won’t. Pablo, I don’t know what you drink.”

  His panic must have been visible, because both their faces fell when they turned toward him. Joy gave him a look of abject pity; Julian adopted such a perfect performance of compassion that Paul knew he was trying to hide his impatience.

  “My room’s up the stairs,” said Julian, far too kindly for Paul to trust it. “Turn left, then it’s the last door on the right. I’ll be up soon.”

  Paul suspected he was supposed to apologize, which just made him angrier.

  “It was nice to meet you, Joy,” he said, and darted back into the hall before Julian could change his mind.

  He’d left his suitcase at the base of the stairs, but it was gone when he returned. He found it in Julian’s room, emptied into the dresser and tucked neatly under the guest bed. He was mortified to think Cecilia had done this for him, though the thought that it could have been Julian’s mother was far worse. In their drawer his clothes looked shabby, folded so carefully by the unseen hands that the neatness felt almost mocking.

  He lay on his bed; with the curtains drawn, the room was dim and cool. There was little sign that it belonged to anyone, much less Julian. It was of a piece with the rest of the house, tidy as a guest room, with twin nautical-striped bedspreads and blue wallpaper etched with lighthouses and gulls. The only trace of personality was the chair by the window, a folding director’s chair where Mrs. Fromme would doubtless would have preferred an armchair. Paul could imagine Julian, a few years younger, making a frame with his fingers as he looked out over the bay.

  It wasn’t long before Julian sidled inside and shut the door with his shoulder. He’d brought two glasses, glittering with condensation, which he set on Paul’s dresser with a chatter.

  “I think we’re even, now.” Julian brushed Paul’s hair back from his face and leaned down to kiss him, hard enough to hurt; his mouth was sweet and warm with bourbon.

  “Don’t ever make me beg you for anything again,” he said quietly. “Understood?”