“What boys?” I ask slowly. “You mean like Sherman, the physicist?”
She shakes her head. “No, before college. When she was in junior high. Sherman loved Shelly, and I think she loved him, but I don’t think…well, I don’t know, but I don’t think she was capable of being close to a guy, especially when she was having problems with her weight. Sherman used to talk to me about it, not to betray her, but to understand her. Once, right after they had sex, she screamed at him that she hated him, that he was vile, and she never wanted to see him again. He never got over it, he felt like he’d raped her. They couldn’t connect again after that. Sexually, I mean.” Lauren pauses. “I’m uncomfortable talking about her this way. You have to know that everyone really loved Shelly.”
“I loved Shelly, too, Lauren,” I say. “Which is why I have to know.” Lauren tries to tell me that I shouldn’t focus on the bad things that happened to Shelly. “She was a really good person, Frannie. Why can’t you just leave it at that?”
“Because, Lauren, I can’t. Aren’t there things you don’t know about Jessie? Personal things she would tell her friends, but not you. Imagine if she died and you didn’t know them. Imagine how left out you’d feel.”
“But sisters don’t always share everything, Frannie.”
“Lauren, you can say that because Jessie’s alive. And one day, maybe you will share everything.” I look at her. “Shelly’s gone. I don’t even have a chance of that happening.”
Lauren looks at me as if considering something. “Sherman tried to talk to Shelly about sex, but all she could hear was that he wasn’t attracted to her. So she broke up with him. Her rationale was completely convoluted. She broke up with him, but she was the one who felt rejected. She couldn’t deal with the sex. The intimacy. Whatever you call it.” Lauren’s getting looped, so when she raises her hand to call the waiter, I tell her I don’t want another drink.
“I know this is hard,” I say, “but I have to know about the boys from junior high.”
“I need another drink.” Lauren reaches into her purse. “Shelly and I took a creative writing class together. We wrote poetry and stories, most of which sucked. But she wrote this one story that flipped me out. I don’t know if it really happened, and since you don’t know about it, it probably didn’t. I always thought…fuck, I don’t know, I thought it was true. It really bothered me and I just stuck it with Shelly’s books and figured I’d ask her about it one day. Anyway, I went through my college stuff last night. Here…” She thrusts some papers in my hand.
I skim the pages. I’m dying to read them, but Lauren is watching me, and I feel woozy from the alcohol. “What’s it about?” I ask.
“Just read it. You’ll see.”
Reluctantly, I fold the story into my backpack. “Did you ever ask if it was true?”
She shakes her head. “I thought that if she wanted to tell me, she would have,” she says, then she grabs my hand. “Let’s get fucked up, Frannie. I mean, really shit-faced.” I call the waiter over. “We’d like two more vodka tonics,” I tell him and Lauren adds, “just hold the tonic,” and for some reason we suddenly can’t stop laughing.
“That Therman. What a guy,” Lauren says. “Hello, I’m Therman and thith ith my girlfriend, Thelly.” Lauren and I howl like it’s the funniest thing in the world. Soon, we’re laughing and crying and hugging. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her arms around me. “You can always call me. I can be a pretend sister. Any time you want.”
I squint. In the glow of the lights, I keep thinking that with her blond hair and creamy skin, Lauren looks like Shelly. I can’t stop staring at her. “Thanks,” I say, “I’m so tired of being alone.”
“You’re not alone,” she says. She rummages through her purse and finds a safety pin. “Frannie, give me your finger,” she commands. I hold out my hand, and she pricks my finger, then her own. We press them together. “Now we’re blood sisters.” We giggle. “God,” she says finally. “I sure as shit hope you don’t have AIDS.”
“Smith, Fran,” I mutter. “Negative.” Even though she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Lauren laughs like a hyena. And I laugh too. Because if I didn’t, I’d be bawling like a baby.
The next morning, massively hung over, I go into the kitchen to carve up a cow and make hamburger meat. I’m so fucking nauseous, I need beef. But the minute I open the refrigerator, I lose my appetite.
On top of the microwave, there’s a picture of a strange man wearing a turquoise ascot and horn-rimmed glasses. He’s smoking a pipe. As I get closer, I recognize the man’s eyes, which peer out like those of a bunny caught in headlights. I stare at the picture closely and groan. The man is my father.
I walk into his office. I look around and see another picture of my dad on his bookshelf. In this one, he’s wearing silver-rimmed aviator sunglasses and a shiny white racing scarf. He holds up two fingers, making a “V.” I shove the picture in his face, but he waves me away. “I’ll move the cards. Right. Ciao, babe.” He turns to me, beaming. “So what do you think?”
“Daddy, who are you? What the hell are these?”
“You told me to get a professional picture. I wanted something different, so I went to that place in the mall where they dress you up and take pictures. You know—Glamour Shots.” He frowns. “They told me these were terrific. You haven’t seen the best one.” Apprehensive, I follow him into the den. Next to a picture of Shelly, there’s another shot of my father. I blink so I don’t have to look at Shelly.
In the picture, he’s wearing a Western shirt with fringe, a red bandanna, and a ten-gallon hat that he’s tipping as if to say howdy. “I got some eight-by-tens and a few wallet-sized. But wait, you haven’t seen the best part.” He hands me a piece of paper. “I put this together for the Christian Times.”
* * *
Howdy, cowgirls! This issue’s bachelor of the month is David Hunter, a salesman from Lindsey Point. Dave is looking for a single, divorced, or otherwise uninvolved woman who’s outdoorsy, likes the smell of a campfire, and riding bareback through moonlit fields. Dave’s a middle-aged cowboy with an Achy-Breaky heart lookin’ for a pistol-packin’ mama who ain’t afraid of the call of the wild. David enjoys good books, fine wines, and two-stepping to Garth Brooks. For a rootin’-tootin’ good time, call David at ext. 2453 or write to the Christian Times, 405 State Street, Lindsey Point, New York, 11225. Yee-haw!!
* * *
“This is your personal ad?” He chuckles. “Dad, you want a nice lady from the Junior League to honey-bake some ham and watch The Way We Were. You don’t want a woman who rides mechanical bulls.” I look at him. How can you be so weird and still live in your own body?
“It’s a gimmick, Frannie. Everyone loves a gimmick.”
“Daddy…” I pause. “Women don’t like gimmicks. You’re a nice guy. Just be yourself.”
“Too late.” He snatches the paper back. “It comes out next week.” He reads it again and laughs. “I happen to think it’s very clever.”
“But it’s not clever, Daddy. It’s a very strange thing to do.”
“I can’t sit around brooding my life away. It’s time to move on. Carpe diem. Besides,” he adds, “this would drive your mother crazy. Imagine her face if she saw this.”
“Yeah,” I say, a hollowness carved in the pit of my stomach, envisioning my mother looking at the cowboy picture and rolling her eyes. “Imagine.”
17
Shelly’s story opens with three sisters sitting with their mother at the kitchen table, counting calories. It’s upbeat and funny. Then it takes a turn, and all of a sudden, it’s not so funny anymore.
Hannah wishes she could fly. At night she jumps out of her bedroom window, just a little jump, but one that makes her feel weightless and free. She is young: ripened and juicy like the blue plums she sucks in the summertime. On the hill behind her house, she meets boys from her school. Sometimes there’s one, sometimes there’s two. Sometimes there’s more. They lodge their tongues in h
er mouth, unbutton her blouse and squeeze her breasts, they put their hands down her pants and stick their dirty, sticky fingers into her vagina. They laugh and smell their fingers, stick them into her mouth, make her taste herself. The taste makes her gag and Hannah lies on her back and stares at the stars, wishing she was airborne, far away.
They pull off her pants and one of the boys straddles her. He puts his rubbery dick in her face and she smells him. He smells fishy and sweaty and she keeps looking up at the stars. When he jams himself into her, the other boys watch, mesmerized. Hannah hears a car door slam, but it is drowned out by the voice in her head, the voice that says he shouldn’t do this, Hannah, he shouldn’t, tell him no, but Hannah doesn’t. She feels him inside her and her mind shuts down and when the other boys take their turns, she feels herself floating upward, up and far away, as if she’s been levitated from her flesh. She floats above the boys and above herself and watches as they enter her and pull out, their creamy white come covering her stomach like a soft woolen blanket.
Let’s go,” one of the boys says. “Get up!” He shakes her but Hannah won’t move, not when he kicks her, not even when he drags her by her hair down the hill. As they race away, their laughter echoes behind them, naked and ugly like the baying of a drowning cat. Hannah lies on her back, closes her eyes, and lets the night envelop the body she used to inhabit. It wasn’t like they forced me, she tells herself. I didn’t say no. I didn’t say anything. And she no longer feels like a summertime plum.
She sticks her fingers in her mouth and sucks on them, wondering why she feels so empty when, just seconds before, she was filled. She feels a soft breeze waft slowly over the houses, deeper and deeper into the trees. She lifts the body that is merely a dead weight and rises from the ground. The sweet summer breeze blows softly away and she looks up at the stars and makes a wish. But she knows that wishes aren’t meant to come true, and for girls like her, flying is impossible.
Horrified, I lie in bed, trying to connect this story to Shelly. I try to remember her in junior high. She was so pretty back then, but I can’t remember anything significant that could make this story real. It’s difficult to picture her at twelve or thirteen. In my head, she’s blurry like a photograph that’s out of focus. I remember she had nosebleeds and silky hair and loved red barrettes. She went to a school for gifted kids and ate hot honey sandwiches and Rice-a-Roni. It was in junior high that she first gained weight, wasn’t it junior high? Was that the beginning?
I read the story again. If it’s true, why didn’t she tell me? It’s not like you told me about your life, she would have said. But this is different, I say silently. How? she retorts. How is this different?
I remember my own clumsy experiences with boys, their groping hands, sweaty kisses; their fat tongues pushed into my mouth, always tasting of beer and cigarettes. And the endless panting, like fucking dogs, begging and panting and begging and panting and…Suddenly sick, I go into the bathroom, kneel over the toilet, and gag until I’m dry-heaving. In my head, I’m confused and I can’t make connections, but it hurts too much to think about so I take two Valium, get back into bed, and will myself to fall asleep.
I spend my days at the home until my shift at Rascals. My grandfather and I don’t talk much. Sometimes we watch TV, sometimes we play cards. We just do what old people do. We sit.
When I walk into his room, I see Rat Boy sitting on Freddie’s bed, watching TV.
“Have you even moved since I last saw you?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “I’ve been sitting here all week, waiting for you.”
Despite myself, I smile.
Suddenly Freddie rushes in. My grandfather hobbles behind him, cane in hand. “Look who’s here!” Freddie calls. He grabs me in a big hug. “Hello, shaineh maidel.”
My grandfather pumps Rat Boy’s arm. “Such a good-lookin’ fella!” He turns to me. “Isn’t he good-lookin’?”
I look at the guy. “He has no idea what you look like,” I deadpan. “He’s blind.”
Freddie tugs on my hair. “This is still too long. Ach, such a ragamuffin.”
Rat Boy raises his eyebrows. “We know he’s not blind.” Indignant, I smooth my curls.
Freddie pushes the guy toward me. “Say hello, vill you? I’ve been vanting dis day to come for months. Dis is my grandson. Charlie. Charlie, say hello already.”
Charlie forces a smile and sticks out his hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Charlie. And you must be…” He glances at my chest. “Madonna?”
I shake his hand. “Actually, my name is Frannie. Madonna’s just my stage name.” With my arms at my sides, I squeeze my breasts together to create cleavage. “You’re the guy in the picture.” I point to Freddie’s dresser.
“That’s me.” Charlie beams. “Major stud material, huh?”
“SO?” Freddie claps. “Vhat do you tink?”
Charlie puts his hands on his grandfather’s shoulders. “Grandpa, calm down. It’s too early to call the caterers.”
I help my grandfather to a chair. I put a pillow underneath him and adjust his feet. I feel Charlie watching me. “I can’t stay long,” I announce. “I have a date tonight.”
“Vith who?” Freddie barks. “Your mother said you’ve been alone for months.” Charlie grins. “So, let Grandpa and me watch TV vile you and Charlie get to know vone another. Here, Max, you blind fool, get out of Frannie’s vay. Let her sit.”
“Get your hands off me, you mamser, ya bastard,” my grandfather snaps at him.
“Ladies,” I interrupt. “You two sit. Charlie and I will sit on Freddie’s bed, okay?”
My grandfather leans toward the TV. “So Charlie,” he says, transfixed on the set. “Why aren’t you married? Such a good-lookin’ fella.”
Charlie laughs. “Max, watch TV.”
“I’m watching. It’s just a question.”
“You’re thirty-one, kiddo,” Freddie cuts in, also facing the TV. “You ain’t gettin’ any younger.”
“You’re thirty-one?” I blurt out. “I didn’t realize you were so old…I mean, I thought you were closer to my age.”
“Since when is thirty-one old?” He stares at me. “You’re hardly nineteen.”
“Frannie’s twenty-six,” my grandfather cuts in. “Her birthday is coming. So Charlie, you can take her out for a Happy Birthday to You dinner.” He hums a few bars of “Happy Birthday.”
“Grandpa,” I cut in quickly. “Charlie probably has plans.”
“What plans? Charlie, you can’t cancel these plans? Why? It’s Frannie’s birthday.”
Charlie looks at me and shrugs. I just roll my eyes. Finally engrossed, my grandfather and Freddie bicker about which program to watch. “Grandpa,” I tell him, “don’t be so selfish.” I get up and kiss his head.
Charlie watches me as I sit down. “Twenty-six is hardly nineteen, Madonna,” he hisses at me. “Face it, you’re about to hit the wall.”
“I have years before thirty. And stop calling me Madonna, Chuck.”
“Time’s running out,” Charlie whispers. “They say that women over thirty are more likely to get killed in a plane crash than find a husband. If I were you, I’d snag the first man who’d have me.”
“If you’re going to quote a statistic,” I hiss, “get it right or better yet, read a book. You might learn a thing or two about your own marketability.”
“Oh God,” Charlie rolls his eyes. “A feminist.”
“What’s wrong with that? You’re one of those guys who hates women? Problems with a domineering mother? Confused about your own masculinity?”
“Hardly,” he says. “But believe me, I know what you’re all about. For starters, you won’t let a man hold a door open for you because it’s patronizing, but you’ll allow him to pay for dinner. You combine your salaries, but you’re allowed to spend 25 percent more. You order him around like a drill sergeant in bed; you expect to be on top 50 percent of the time so you can control everything; and then you wonder why I want to sleep
with the pretty young thing at the gym who wears sundresses that show off her voluptuous breasts and pink-passion lip gloss and who smiles at me like I have a ten-inch penis!” Charlie takes a deep breath. His face is beet-red.
I stare at him, wide-eyed. “Someone you know?”
“My girlfriend. Excuse me…woman friend.”
“Well,” I say slyly, “I don’t expect to be on top 50 percent of the time, although once in a while is very nice. So how long have you been dating her? This feminist?”
“Six months, maybe seven. Actually, she just dumped me. I hate her.” He smiles. “Hate her with me.”
“I’m bonded with her in sisterhood. I can’t hate her because I hate you.”
“The truth is,” he tells me, “she scares the hell out of me.” Leaning back, he almost topples over, but he grabs my shoulder to catch himself. He lets his hand linger.
“Now, about my marketability,” I begin. I haven’t been this close to a guy in a long time. My mouth’s suddenly dry and my heart’s pounding. I wish I had a Valium.
“Almost thirty,” Charlie clucks. “No man, no kids. I’d stock up on cat food.”
“I could get married if I wanted. Besides”—I lower my voice—“I don’t know if I want kids. Seems like it’s easy to screw them up. Look at you. Who refers to a woman as a ‘pretty young thing’? This is the nineties and you’re Ricky Ricardo.”
His voice deepens. “You’d make a great mother. I see how you dote on Max.”
“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” I glare at him. “I can’t tell when you’re kidding and when you’re trying to hurt my feelings.” I get up. “I have to go,” I tell everyone loudly. “Or I’m going to be late for my date. With a rich, handsome Jewish doctor.”
“It was good to see you again, Madonna,” Charlie says. He grabs my hand. “Trust me,” he whispers, pulling me back. “I wouldn’t hurt you.” He squeezes my hand, and as I leave the room, it pulses like the gentle beating of a heart.
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