Split-Level

by Sande Boritz Berger

  “A waiter, yes, I can see that—fast, funny and glib, right?” Paula smiles, and something in her eyes relays a jealous jab, but I push on. “So, was it love at first sight?”

  “Not really. He was, well, big.”

  The double meaning makes me giggle.

  “Oh, no.” Paula blushes, noting my frisky expression. “I meant he was sort of manly. Before him, I’d dated mostly boyish guys.”

  Oh, I think, more like Donny.

  “What about you two?” Paula asks, checking her watch.

  “Well, I’d just broken up with my high school sweetheart for the tenth time, when Donny and I met while working at a day camp.”

  “So, Donny was your rebound?” Paula asks, her eyes widening.

  Something in her tone makes me feel like I committed a sin. “Not really. I only went with my boyfriend for so many years out of habit.”

  “But you loved him, right?”

  “Who?”

  “The boyfriend,” she reminds me.

  “Yes, yes, of course, but after a while we were more like a brother and sister taking each other for granted.”

  “I don’t mind being taken for granted,” Paula states proudly. “I like taking care of most everything, as long as Charlie takes care of us.”

  I wipe away my you’ve got to be kidding expression. I’m wrong to judge and don’t want to put her off. But I do recall hearing from Donny how she ironed Charlie’s shirts and underwear. I had replied to this domestic news bulletin with, “Well then, lucky Charlie.”

  We pause in front of Marty’s Male Boutique. In the window are two mustached mannequins wearing skintight, Ban-Lon shirts over navy bell-bottoms.

  “I’m not a fan of mustaches. They usually advertise a guy’s last meal, but I do like that shirt. Should we browse?” I ask. Paula nods yes, and I push the heavy door leading into a narrow, claustrophobic space. An array of cowbells ring and my nostrils are accosted by the heady smell of incense.

  Standing side by side, Paula and I thumb through cellophane packages of brightly colored shirts. “What size is Charlie?”

  “Large,” she answers, and I whisper large to myself.

  “Donny’s a medium. At least I think so. It’s been a while since I’ve bought him anything,” I say, my voice trailing off. I used to always surprise Donny with small gifts like shirts, and albums, and books. It once gave me enormous pleasure.

  Paula pulls a blue paisley from the messy pile, and holds it out for me to see. “A medium, for Donny,” she says assuredly.

  “Oh, here’s the same exact one in khaki. It’s a large, should we?” I ask, chuckling like an adolescent girl.

  Paula’s face beams. There’s a mischievous crinkling in the corners of her eyes.

  “Will you gift wrap these please?” I ask the curly-headed Marty of Marty’s Male Boutique. “Wow, this aroma is pungent. What is it?”

  “Vanilla, doll, like you,” Marty says, swiping the twenty from my hand. “It covers a myriad of sins, if you get what I mean.” Marty’s wearing an onyx beaded choker. His face has an orangey cast; I guess, from a heavy application of Man-Tan.

  “Whew!” I wave my hand in front of my face, trying to clear the suffocating air.

  Then, from the back of the store, I hear someone shout out my name. Immediately, I recognize the “Al-lux!” I panic, as if caught in the midst of a jewel heist.

  “Hi, gorgeous,” Marty bellows toward Rona. Having spotted me with Paula, she has already put on her I’m superior, you’re a peasant puss.

  “So, what’s with the gift?” Rona asks, after saying an almost inaudible “hi” to Paula.

  “Ah …”

  “For Charlie,” Paula interjects. “I’m throwing him a party next week.”

  “Oh, nice,” Rona says, turning toward me. “Alex, I thought you were working ‘all day’ on your T-shirt orders, and that’s why you couldn’t have lunch with me.”

  “I was. I mean, I am. But I needed a break.”

  Rona half listens while eyeing Paula’s outfit: a pair of baggy jeans and a faded red T-shirt. In contrast, Rona looks like an ad for Saks. Her navy blue slacks fit perfectly on her small frame, and her pinstriped blouse is tucked in—worn with a thin, faux alligator belt. When I see Rona looking at Paula like this, I want to leap forward and mess her, but I realize that’s impossible. How do you mess polished marble? Still, she has the power to make me feel guilty, as if she were my mother catching me in a porn shop dressed in chains and chaps, holding a whip instead of a gift-wrapped shirt … no big deal … for another woman’s husband.

  FOURTEEN

  We leave the house at six o’clock on Friday morning, our intent to beat the predicted holiday traffic. Donny had originally wanted to rent a van so we’d all be able to travel together, but I nixed the idea, when Becky cried, saying that she hated the bad girl, Ricki, and her bossy brother, Ross.

  “They leave me out, Mommy. Every time I want to play with them, they say ‘No! You are a big, ugly doody.’”

  “Well, once we get to the vacation house, you can play with your sister, and read your favorite books. You don’t have to be with them if you don’t want to.”

  “But what if they sneak up and kill me while I’m asleep in my bed?”

  “They can’t kill you. First, because Daddy and I won’t let them. Second, because their daddy’s a lawyer and lawyers’ kids are not allowed to kill people.” Sometimes I can’t believe what comes out of my mouth.

  “Oh,” she said, considering my words in her pretty sun-streaked head before walking away. I had a flash fantasy of the Bells’ kids behind bars as young adults—Paula visiting, bringing freshly ironed underthings, boxes of Dunkin’ Donuts, while Charlie stood before a jury, arguing in their defense.

  Donny pulls our car in front of the Bells’ redbrick split-level and shuts off the motor. The sun is bursting through a gunmetal sky, and the entire block is quiet except for the occasional caw of a crow perched on a rooftop. A garage door lifts, crankily, and Charlie’s copper-colored Buick backs out of the driveway onto the road. Our cars are parallel, nearly touching. Donny rolls down his window, and I see Charlie straining forward—maybe to glimpse at me. I’m besieged by a strange erotic surge, up from my legs to my chest, everything I’ve denied and suppressed for weeks. It’s been years since I felt so sexually charged, in touch with the stirrings in my body. Hello, you, sensuous woman, you; you exist after all.

  I wave back, then pat my hand over a fake yawn. Lana, our journalist, reports to Becky in a loud whisper. “Becky, guess what? The bad girl and her mean brother are asleep in the back seat.”

  Paula, looking in the visor, applies a frosty gloss to her lips, which gives her eyes a mysterious opaqueness in the morning light. She smiles broadly at Donny. They lock eyes, and for a few uneasy seconds, I don’t know where to put myself.

  “So you’ll follow me,” Donny tells Charlie, “but in case we get separated, here are the directions.”

  “Sounds good to me, guy,” Charlie mumbles back, the pipe stem clamped in his mouth. I hope he won’t smoke and drive at the same time. I want to shout, You be careful now, Charlie Bell.

  We are on the road for less than half an hour when Lana crosses her heart and swears she has to pee. Donny pulls into the rest stop on the turnpike and both men get out of their cars. Donny hops out quickly, and runs with Lana to the bathroom, but first I see Charlie stop them. He kisses Lana on top of her beautiful curls. She beams, clutching an envelope-sized piece of faded pink nylon fabric, what once was her blankie and now stinks from spoiled milk since she won’t allow me to wash it.

  “Donny, don’t forget to line the seat.” He waves his hand in response. Charlie strolls over to my open window, and I am officially awake.

  “Good morning, Mrs. P.” Leaning in, he adds, “Hi, Miss Beck-a-roo.”

  Becky answers, “Hello.” Her pretty blues are glued to our interaction, her lashes fluttering like a doll’s.

  “Good morning to you,
Mr. Bell. So did you guys have breakfast?”

  “No, I thought we’d grab something on the road. I figured we’d have to stop along the way for the kids.”

  I decide not to mention Lana’s new porcelain habit, her fascination with toilets in every house, of every town or city we’ve visited. And how lately, she’s more aware of the mechanism of her kidneys.

  Charlie starts humming along with my car radio as it plays Fly Me to the Moon, above the whisking sounds of trucks and cars already filling all lanes of the highway. I blush, embarrassed by his attention, and now he’s singing real words. I have to look away. He’s handsome, yes, nice, yes, and definitely old beyond his years. I want to say: Show me your birth certificate, Charlie Bell. Prove you didn’t live in the ’40s—didn’t fox-trot to Sinatra at the Paramount. As we talk, I notice his heart rising and falling through the fabric of his shirt, and then he no longer looks as old—no, not at all.

  Donny walks back to the car, carrying Lana. “All aboard!” he yells. This elicits a grin from Paula, who has been sitting in her car eating a donut, the white sugar now clinging to her chin. We wait for Charlie to use the men’s room before we hit the road again. I like watching him walk away, quick and decisive. Becky, smelling from grape bubble gum, leans over and kisses me on the cheek, bringing me out of a delicious daze.

  Not an hour goes by before Lana threatens to make “something” in her sand pail while we are driving sixty miles per hour. We signal to Charlie and Paula, and begin slowing down at the approach to a combo gas station and Hot Shoppe. We get out of the car, stretch our legs, and decide we might as well find a table, relax, and eat breakfast. Donny and Charlie take our orders and go to stand on line, while Paula and I take the children to what’s clearly labeled Ladies. Ross, seven, refuses to go in, and sits cross-legged on the damp floor outside the restroom, swirling the propeller of a toy plane.

  “Okay,” Paula says, “but I’m warning you, don’t move!”

  “Do you want me to take Ricki in with me and my girls?” I ask. “That way you can stand outside the men’s room with Ross.” I can’t believe she’s planning on leaving him here.

  “No, thanks,” she whispers, “he’d kill me.”

  Should I be surprised she lets her six-year-old boss her around?

  We leave Ross behind and join the line inside the ladies’ room. While Ricki hides between Paula’s knees, Becky and Lana keep busy depositing coins into a slot machine containing miniature perfumes.

  “Okay, girls, we’re next.” The three of us are sandwiched into the stall. Becky knows the routine and carefully lines the seat with several squares of tissue. Lana sits first and is off the seat in seconds.

  “Lana, we stopped for you—maybe you should sit awhile.”

  “All done,” Lana says, pulling up her red Health-Tex bell-bottoms. The floor is strewn with wet squares I must peel from her sneakers.

  While we’re washing our hands, I scan the bathroom for Paula. I assume she’s gone back to the table with her kids, but as I pass the gift shop, I see her, one arm clutching Ricki. Ross is not with her. I look back to the spot where he had slumped down to wait and see a man pacing while smoking a cigarette, most likely waiting for someone in the ladies’ room.

  “Paula, where’s Ross?” I ask, rushing into the gift shop. She is describing Ross to a young woman behind the counter, who shrugs and shakes her head no. I grab the girls’ hands, urging them to keep up with my pace. I scan Charlie and Donny’s table, hoping Ross is with them, perhaps even hiding underneath.

  “Why do you look so harried?” Charlie says. “Did you forget you’re on vacation?”

  “Paula can’t find Ross.”

  He jumps up, immediately, and is already running when I shout, “She’s near the gift shop.”

  “Mommy,” Lana says, “maybe he went away with a stranger.”

  “I don’t think so, honey. Ross is smart, like you and Becky. He would never do that. He’d scream, yell, and kick first. We’ll find him. He’s probably just lost.”

  Donny has wrapped up everyone’s breakfast, and I grab a couple of the Styrofoam cups. The girls cling to the tail of my blouse while we walk to the front entrance. I look at my watch; it feels like midday, but it’s barely eight o’clock. As we approach the entrance, I notice a small crowd huddled together—folks with coffee and looks of consternation, all looking in the same direction: up.

  “What’s going on?” I ask a young couple, both with shoulder-length hair.

  “Man, there’s some crazy friggin’ kid up there—see, on the overpass?”

  “Ed, watch your shit-hole mouth. Can’t you see she’s got kiddies?”

  My terror sensor slides up several notches, and the warm coffee slips out of my hands, splattering across my feet.

  “Sorry ma’am, I lost my place. The kid … well, he looked like he was going to jump from up there, but something flew right out of his hands. Man, he nearly caused a pileup. The little fucker could have gotten people killed.”

  I watch, clutching the girls’ hands as Paula and Charlie walk Ross down the steep ramp of the overpass, and back to the parking lot. Charlie yanks Ross’s arm, then hauls off and wallops his backside, elevating Ross a foot off the ground. Most onlookers have scattered; those who remain applaud Charlie’s choice of physical force. His demeanor remains solidly serious, and I wonder if he hit his boy thinking it might teach him an indelible lesson. When they reach the end of the ramp, Ross buries his head in Paula’s stomach. She bends over and rubs his sandy hair. A ponytailed older man hops from the cab of an eighteen-wheeler, and yells something to Charlie. The man crouches down, taps Ross on the shoulder, and hands him the remains of his wooden Cessna.

  Minutes later, without a word, each family climbs back into their car. The warm congeniality of the morning has been smashed along with Ross’s toy airplane. As car engines begin to roar, stirring the taut silence, Lana, as if waiting for the car to shift gears, announces, once more, “Mommy, I have to … !”

  We are gathered, finally, on the gravelly driveway, looking down a winding path, which leads to the lake. Cousin George’s house is a simple cedar saltbox, more of a beach house, not the house you’d expect to see upstate, tucked behind a wall of pink dogwoods and lilac bushes in full bloom. It reminds me of my grandmother’s house, always lush with flowers and honeysuckle, climbing the fence in her backyard, the tiny buds deliciously sweet on my tongue.

  Soon Paula and I are in the kitchen unpacking our coolers of food and staples, while Charlie and Donny survey the surroundings to check for possible hazards: old mousetraps, random wires, anything dangerous for curious fingers. They seem to get along nicely, Donny and Charlie; so different, yet complementing each other well. The truth is I never noticed how handy Donny was until now, seeing him around Charlie, who admits to being all thumbs. “Lug wrench? What the hell’s a lug wrench?” he’d asked Donny while searching through a box of tools. But when it comes to organizing the kids for a game of Simon Sez outside, on the lawn, Charlie has the energy of a pep-rally coach. He’s fast and funny, like an animated cartoon, a sturdy, yet moveable tree. The children climb up his legs, onto his hips, until they are on his shoulders, stroking the top of his head. That’s where Lana is now—on top of Charlie’s broad shoulders. She is busy rearranging his hair while he laughs heartily out loud.

  Ricki and Ross don’t seem to mind that Lana has usurped their father. Fortunately, they appear mellowed by the serenity of these new surroundings. I haven’t seen them pinch or punch since we arrived.

  After a late lunch, both families stroll down the long slate path to the edge of the lake. Donny removes his shoes and socks and dips his feet into the pea-green water.

  “Yikes, like a tub of ice!”

  Four children stare at him and frown.

  “Dad, does that mean we can’t go swimming?” Ricki asks Charlie.

  Charlie hoists Lana from his shoulders and hands her back to me.

  “Don’t worry, I’m sur
e it’ll warm up. We just arrived—maybe you’ll swim tomorrow.”

  “Maybe in July,” I whisper in Charlie’s ear.

  “I heard you, Mommy.” Lana pouts.

  “I know what we can do, Dad,” Ricki says. “Let’s take a boat ride.”

  “Yeah, Dad!” says Ross, who’s been skimming rocks on the water’s surface, sullen since his scolding this morning. I’ve tried smiling at him, but he scowls and turns away. I’m not used to children not liking me, and this boy has sent me a clear message.

  Barely visible among dozens of bent cattails, sits the one and only rowboat, tied loosely to the dock by a rope caked with algae.

  “Charlie, why don’t you and Donny take the kids out and we’ll sit here,” Paula suggests. She has already settled into an antique white wrought iron bench with a matching tea table. She’s even paler in sunlight, resembling a Victorian doll, a fine collectible made of porcelain.

  “I want to stay too, Mom,” Becky says, with the same look she gets when she doesn’t want to go to someone’s party.

  “Are you sure, Beck?” I think she wants to tell me something but is too polite to snub Paula. I’ve taught her it’s not nice to tell secrets in front of others.

  “Come on, Becky, we’re just going to row right there to those trees. It’s not that far,” Donny says.

  Becky shakes her head no. She does not like the Bells’ children one bit. Lana, taking care of her older sister, says, “I’ll stay with you, Becky. We can pick flowers for our new house!” Becky beams, and they are off, running up a hill, Becky tripping a few times, looking back at me with her sweet, self-conscious smile.

  “That’s my Becky girl. Cute and klutzy … takes after her daddy, now that I think of it.”

  “Gee, I didn’t picture Donny clumsy,” Paula says, with just a hint of disappointment.

  “Haven’t you noticed? He’s probably what you’d call accident-prone.”

  “Oh, I guess it’s a good thing then that Charlie was once a champion swimmer,” Paula boasts.

  “That makes me feel so much better.” We share a laugh as we wave to the kids, Charlie, and Donny, who have managed to undo the thick rope mooring the boat to the dock. Charlie’s holding the oars, and I watch his broad back fan in and out, as effortless as an accordion.