Split-Level

by Sande Boritz Berger

  “Are you kidding?” I said, hearing this for the first time.

  “Oh Alex, don’t be coy,” she answered. “You’re attractive, sensual, and you carry yourself with extreme confidence.”

  My extreme confidence had me unsure whether this petite woman with the elfish grin was paying me a compliment or putting me down.

  “Come on people, wake up, it’s not even midnight,” Sophie says, clapping her hands three times. “The game’s called Wink and it goes like this: Everyone has to pick a piece of paper from this wicker basket. Only one of the papers is marked with an X. So, whoever gets the X is the killer. It’s the killer’s job to kill as many people in the room as he or she can without getting caught.”

  “How, pray tell, does the killer do the deed?” Rob asks, as if the question was a setup.

  “By winking, silly, that’s why the game’s called Wink.” Sophie continues, “Remember: Do not reveal yourself as the killer. Make sure no one else is watching, but if you are winked at by the killer, then immediately yell: ‘I’m dead’ to let us know you are not the killer. Got it, everyone?”

  Nervous giggles dart about the room. Why are adults so dumb when following simple directions?

  “But first,” Rob says, “some A-1 stuff!”

  God, no, please. Another fat joint is passed around. One by one, Sophie and Rob’s guests take a hit of the “good stuff.” It’s hashish, which I try to avoid since the vapors are too harsh for my respiratory system. But Donny gets up and presents the joint to me. All eyes are upon me. Once again, I’m at the blackboard in fourth grade reciting The Declaration of Independence. I fake a deeper inhale than I take. Still, the fumes singe my throat.

  Sophie places the basket under my nose. I think of tossing in the joint, but I’d probably start a fire. Instead, I reach for a tiny piece of folded paper. I unfold it in slow motion, stalling, trying to recap the rules of this ridiculous game, which I’ve already forgotten. I look at my paper quickly, then squeeze it down into the pocket of my hip-huggers.

  Donny, wedged between Sophie and Rob on the couch, tosses me a smile. He appears shrunken, dwarfed by big bad Rob, or it could be the pot. Sophie’s eyes dart around the room, intent to catch the killer in action—to give them up and away. I try another deep breath because the pressure is more than I can bear. The red X on the crumpled paper feels as though it’s branded through my sweaty palm. I actually hear the sizzle. My eyes scan the array of faces. Paula and her sister-in-law are already dismissing the game, and I wonder what the hell could they be talking about this long? Rob’s eyes bulge as he forces a huge slice of cake down his throat. Sophie cackles, enjoying him enjoying. The coast seems clear. Yet, I feel him watching me, waiting for my move. Standing in the glow of candlelight, he looks very kind and more handsome than I imagined.

  I look at … Carl? Charles? Nope, it’s Charlie. He leans against the wall, half listening to his brother beside him. Our eyes lock, and my arms and legs go limp. Only my lashes flutter, as they move up and down, taking on a life of their own, heading straight for my target.

  “I’m dead!” Charlie Bell announces. He stares down at the swirling carpet to avoid my eyes, protecting me from being caught. At once I’m filled with this strange and penetrating warmth, as if wrapped in a rainbow. Who cares if I’m caught?

  “It’s Alex!” Sophie squeals, jumping up from the couch to point to my sun-roasted face. “Alex Pearl’s the killer!”

  It is half past three in the morning, and Donny’s at the wheel of my father’s plane-like, cherished Caddy.

  “Well, did you ever think Sophie and Rob were so out there?” Donny says, widening his eyes, trying to focus on the road.

  “Out there and outrageous, but I admit I had a really good time.”

  “Yeah, I could tell. Hey babe, you looked real pretty tonight. Come here—why are you sitting so far away?”

  I slide over and rest my hand casually on Donny’s thigh. Instinctively, he clamps his hand over it. Testing … one … two … three. I’ve been reluctant to reach out, to make the first move toward closeness. I’m not holding back on purpose. It’s just that I need to be sure I’m really wanted.

  “Thank you. I hope I didn’t look out of it. I hate that zombie look.”

  “Nah, but that couple from our neighborhood and his brother were wacked.”

  “You mean Paula and Charlie? Oh, so that’s why she was so quiet. I only saw her chatting with her sister-in-law.”

  “And me,” Donny says. “I spoke to her in the kitchen while having coffee. She seems a bit withdrawn, but nice—most likely, a loner. You might like her once you got to know her. I suggested we make plans to see them back home.”

  “Really, Don? You never do that. So, I guess that means you liked Charlie?”

  Donny slides his hand up and down my thigh, letting it rest near my groin. “The guy’s definitely a performer,” Donny continues. “He’s with some firm downtown, a trial lawyer.”

  “Well, they do look like a down-to-earth couple, not snobby or nouveau riche.”

  “He complained he was still paying off some hefty loans from law school. These corporate guys have to bust their butts for years before they reap any benefits. Oh, and he’s away practically all the time.” Donny reports this, dreamily, as if imagining what it might be like living in Charlie’s shoes.

  “I’d hate that. I think they have young kids like us. He’s missing their entire childhood.”

  “So, maybe working for Pop isn’t such a bad thing after all. But I’d prefer it if I had a choice in the matter.”

  “Donny, it’s never too late to go back to school or return to your first love, music. We’d manage. I’d find something part-time.” It would be the best thing for Donny to know he could walk away from H. Pearl and Sons if he wanted to. His parents would probably be the first to give him their blessings. He’d probably trade places with Charlie Bell in a blink.

  “What are you thinking about, tell me?” Donny asks. We are walking through the stifling parking garage, swinging hands. The echo of my sandals on the cement forces me to keep looking behind me. The effect of the hashish has faded but only slightly.

  “He’s not how I’d picture a corporate lawyer, all stuffy and conservative. He reminds me of this actor, Ben something, but I can’t remember his name.” I quickly become cautious, aware I might be showing too much interest.

  “Well, there’s usually a great deal of theater in the courtroom—it’s all about who tells the best story.” A hint of envy in Donny’s voice saddens me. I put my arms around him for a big hug. He begins rubbing his body side by side against mine.

  “Not here in the scary garage,” I say. “Let’s hurry upstairs.”

  The pressure has been mounting all weekend, making our attempt at lovemaking frenzied and distracted. Dad has raised the thermostat, and we are sweating profusely beneath the cheap, acrylic blanket used to shield us from surprises: Lana’s need to go potty, my mother’s midnight stroll to see if we double-locked the front door, or, hearing our voices, her standard: “Did you have a good time, children?”

  Faces appear in my head, staccato, like quarter notes on a scale. I’m not able to hold an image long enough to reach orgasm. Our bodies stick, then separate, and I taste the salt of Donny’s perspiration dripping above me. At first, I want it to be unrushed—loving and romantic. But I become bored, and at the same time I’m afraid if we stop, each unsatisfied, it might damage us in some irreparable way. I try focusing on the image of the shy, but sexy, wallpaper hanger, who I’d hired in the fall, selected from Rona’s golden list of community service men. Damn. What was his name? Oh yes, Tommy. Tommy dressed in tight white overalls worn over a torn white tank shirt, his arms splattered with paste and paint from a full day’s work. Only once his sharp hip had bumped mine as we stood in my miniscule powder room, when I showed him the damage done to the bathroom wall. As he talked, I noticed the tiniest drop of white paint on his top lip. I shocked myself when I leaned in to sc
rape it gently with my fingernail, while Tommy stood there frozen, staring at the wall. Turns out, I had picked a very professional wallpaper hanger. Now though, I imagine his lean body pressed to mine, and how holding a flat trowel, dipped in plaster, he butters me up and down, up and down, covering every tiny imperfection, all my cracks and fissures. Wait! There’s a new face in the picture that I try blinking away, but he remains in sharp focus. He’s dressed in a suit, a well-tailored, navy pinstriped suit. Oh, it’s you! I wink.

  “I’m dead.” He smiles. Charlie’s hands caress my bare shoulders, my back, moving down my thighs. They push up and underneath my nightgown. They are rough hands, strong enough to catch me if I fall.

  I lie sweating in the dark, my body limp as Becky’s favorite “drowsy doll” that says, “Good night, I love you.” Donny withdraws, abruptly, without a kiss, while my body trembles. He takes my hand, and I know without us talking, he wants me to help. Though I could be anyone at this moment, I kiss his face, tenderly, and as my eyes become accustomed to the shadows, I see that Donny’s are squeezed shut. His cheekbones glisten in the dark. When I reach out to touch his face, I find it wet with tears.

  “Don, it’s the wine and all the stupid grass, relax.”

  “It’s hot as fucking hell!” He jumps up, groping for the door.

  “Where are you going? It’s late.”

  “The shower,” he says. “I’m going to take a goddamn cold shower.”

  I follow Donny into the hallway and peek in on Becky and Lana. They’re asleep on an air mattress in the dining alcove off the living room. They have kicked off their covers and their nightgowns are twisted around their waists. I lean over their bodies and kiss them each on the neck. Though their hair is damp, they smell fresh as lavender.

  Lana opens her eyes and grins at me; two fingers are curled inside her lips. She doesn’t say anything, but she pops up and looks around, as if reminding herself this is not her room. Then she folds back down and throws her arm around Becky’s neck. I sit there listening to their breathing, twirling a curl of Lana’s hair. Thinking she’s asleep, I start to get up, only to have her reach for my hand. When I finally return to bed, Donny doesn’t stir, but I know from the sharpness of his breath he is still awake.

  “Do you feel better now, Donny?”

  “Oh yeah,” he whispers, turning away from me toward the wall, “so much better.”

  EIGHT

  I would give anything to be lounging under a breezy palm in Florida. But I’m back on Daisy Lane, staring out the window at our only apple tree, now hunched and skeletal. All the gray stalks against the fence, once fertile rose bushes, show little promise. I try to accept this wintry bleakness as a form of punishment—a chilly price to pay for the glory of summer.

  Housebound for weeks, I have become what my Lithuanian grandmother called a balabusteh, a woman of many domestic talents. I’ve made eyelet curtains for Lana’s bedroom, antiqued a small desk for Becky, and cooked chicken soup from scratch, stashing pints away in our freezer. Since my T-shirt business has slowed down, considerably, I find it necessary to keep my hands moving. That’s why I began knitting an Irish Fisherman’s sweater for Donny, which I’ll probably keep for myself out of superstition, because in college whenever I finished a sweater for a guy and handed it over, we broke up within hours. And since we haven’t done it for three and a half weeks, the longest break in our seven years together, I’m definitely not taking any chances.

  For exercise, I make several trips downstairs, where propped against the playroom wall is the blank canvas, angled like a steep white cliff I’ve refused to climb. If I reached the top, might I discover the challenge to adopt a new perspective? This kind of thinking causes me to rush upstairs, raid the pantry, and devour half a bag of chocolate kisses. Yet even sweeter, because of school closings, the girls and I take long naps cuddled together, warm and toasty in my bed. This is the deepest sleep for me because they are nowhere but home, tucked beside me and completely safe.

  Since I nap during the day, unfortunately, I toss and turn like flap-jacks most nights. The neon digits of the alarm clock glow a frustrating 2:00 a.m. When I turn on the light, Donny squints before crunching a pillow over his head. In our first few years together, we’d lie in the dark talking about so many things—discovering one another’s childhood secrets. Now there’s no need to respond to my apology for having stirred him. Instead of warm affection, a kiss, and the stirrings of sexual arousal, my nourishment is the growing stack of Gourmet magazine—a gift subscription from Louise, the best cook I know. While the world is sleeping, I read long, intricate recipes for dishes like Saucisson en Croute, Rumaki, and Chicken Divan in a similar way I once read Frost and Whitman, intrigued by content, the language of the ingredients, and the promise of a satisfying culmination.

  It’s another snowy Friday night, and hoping to lure him with food, I serve Donny a new concoction—Golden Mushroom Chicken. In A Sensuous Life in 30 Days, I’ve read how certain foods, like mushrooms and oysters, are terrific aphrodisiacs though they often cause flatulence. Although the dish is far from gourmet, I need to start out slowly—sort of a fifty-yard stroll for cooks.

  I study Donny intently as he scrapes the remainder of sauce from his plate. This must be how my grandmother beamed while watching Papa dissect an entire whitefish, leaving only the gold casement of scaly skin and needle-like bones. Nana lived to please Papa but did he return the favor? A year after her death, he moved in with her best friend, a woman who painted her face like a geisha and couldn’t boil water.

  “Well?” I am tapping my foot, waiting for a response.

  “Delicious!” Donny stands from the captain’s chair, his hands massaging his belly. “Is this one of my mom’s latest creations?” His skin, pushing through his shirt, resembles an inner tube. Why hadn’t I noticed this before?

  “No, but it is probably somebody else’s mom’s. It was a snap to make—took no time at all.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Well, not that easy,” I add too late. Donny’s headphones are already firmly in place. His eyes are tightly closed, and his lips curl into a flirty smile. And then, within minutes there is flatulence, lots and lots, only I am privy to hear—and I think: So much for the sexual power of mushrooms.

  “Bye, bye, Donny,” I shout, forcing him to take the headphones off.

  “What did you say?”

  “Not a thing.” I’m left standing in the kitchen wondering why I couldn’t take Donny’s compliment or any compliment and just say thank you.

  You look great, Alex usually gets: “Oh, but my hair is terrible!”

  You have a lovely voice, Alex and I’ll answer: “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with your hearing?”

  And, I simply love the paintings you did in the girls’ bedrooms is sure to hear: “Oh, those, well, if you look closely, you’ll see the mistake I made right there. I covered it with a tiny cloud … see?”

  Donny finishes his catnap, shuts off the stereo, and joins me in the kitchen. He opens the broom closet and glances at the school calendar tacked inside. I live my entire life by that calendar. “Al, I’ve got a really cool idea,” he says. “What do you think about us throwing our first Valentine’s party? We can keep it simple, not crazy or terribly expensive.”

  “You want a house full of people on Valentine’s Day?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “Sorry for asking a dumb question, but in the past, you preferred spending that particular night alone—getting a sitter and sharing a quiet dinner somewhere. And then later we get to exchange predictable presents of sleazy underwear.”

  The truth is I planned on making this Valentine’s Day as sensuous as it could be. I was prepared to stand naked on my head, instead of on ceremony.

  Donny responds by pulling the scotch-taped calendar off the wall. “Fear not, Juliet, we can still do that. Turns out, VD is during the week. We can have the party the Saturday night before.”

  “VD? Isn’t that a
sexually transmitted disease?”

  Donny’s sudden enthusiasm regarding socializing surprises me. He has seemed quieter than usual lately, more introspective, something I found both puzzling and mildly attractive. Now he’s talking party.

  “Okay, Don, I guess, but absolutely no fondue. Dr. Carner blames fondue for most of the streptococcus he sees each winter. We’ve all been sick enough.”

  “I have an idea! Why don’t I help you cook?” Donny says.

  Here’s a perfect opportunity for Donny to mimic Ben, who after a week of screaming in the factory, and a weekend of playing eight-handicap golf, can be found sitting in the kitchen, scooping honey and chopped nuts into his prize-winning baklava.

  Donny sits at the kitchen table while I finish loading the dishwasher; he thumbs through my paperback copy of The Elegant Cook. “I’ve got it,” he says. “How about I make baklava?”

  “Baklava would be terrific, Donny.”

  Together in bed, we are propped on corduroy pillows, doing a mock roll call of our guest list. My leg is crossed over Donny’s leg. His curly leg hairs are mingling with my bristles. I am thrilled to be touching like this; it feels warm and cozy, but mostly safe. With a pad and pen, he’s jotting down, crossing out, and enjoying our kindergarten fun. It takes no time to realize in our two years living in Wheatley Heights, we’ve made some acquaintances, are surrounded by nice neighbors, but other than Rona and Hy, we have few new friends.

  “What about Nina and Noel?” Donny first suggests. Nina and Noel still live in our old apartment building in Brooklyn. I’ve always thought Donny had a thing for Nina. She’s a bit of a chameleon—the kind of woman whose demeanor transforms the instant a man walks in the room, and she’s often too damn attentive to Donny. There were times when, watching them interact, I’d feel my stomach tighten. Was there something I didn’t know? What I wanted to say to each of them but didn’t was: Stay away, he’s mine, or Stop, she’s my friend. It often felt like a toss-up.