Iphigenia Murphy

by Sara Hosey

  “I mean, obviously I didn’t do that. But I felt, really, like I didn’t have any other, I don’t know, options. You know? I couldn’t stay there. But there wasn’t anywhere else to go. So, I just thought …”

  I’ve had this problem sometimes, when I am saying something true, I get kind of choked up. Like something’s literally stuck in my throat. And then I can’t talk at all. I can barely even swallow. That happened with Anthony in the car. I stared out the window.

  I kept looking out the window and eventually I said, “I guess, you know, I had a stepbrother. And he was really … abusive to me? I mean, they all were. My father, my stepmother … but he … he was the worst.”

  We sat there for a minute and I finally looked at Anthony and he was frowning hard into the traffic. “I’d like to meet that stepbrother of yours,” he began to growl. “I’d like to—”

  “It doesn’t,” I interrupted. “It doesn’t even matter anymore. I mean,” I took a deep breath. I had to look out the window again.

  I was thinking about how, even though it seemed to somehow satisfy me, I didn’t need what Anthony was offering anymore, not really. For many years I had wanted someone to say exactly what he was saying. And now, it was nice to hear, but I didn’t need it. I didn’t even want it. I didn’t want anything having to do with my stepbrother to contaminate Anthony.

  But something else had been bothering me too. I couldn’t get over the idea that my stepbrother had found Lizette, had pushed her around. That maybe he was now trying to get her to trust him. Like, he was recruiting her or something. I didn’t want to tell Anthony about that because I hadn’t been able to process it yet myself. I couldn’t let that stand, could I? I couldn’t just let my stepbrother be out there, in the world. Maybe hurting Lizette.

  I shook my head, tried to return to the moment I was in. Anthony drove silently. “I guess there’s something else, too. I mean, there’s actually a lot of other stuff. A lot of … complicated stuff. But there’s one other thing I need to tell you now.”

  I glanced over and he nodded at me.

  “It’s … well. I think my mom might have been living in the park,” I admitted. “So, I guess I’m in the park, really, because I’m looking for her.”

  “You’re looking for her,” he repeated.

  “Yeah.” I waved a hand. “I don’t want to get into all of it now. It’s crazy. It looks like she may be gone now or whatever. I don’t even know where to look. But that’s why I went to the park in the first place.”

  I don’t know why I didn’t want to talk about it with Anthony. Maybe it was because, even though the whole thing wasn’t quite as insane as it had initially appeared, it now seemed more hopeless than ever.

  I got lost thinking again and then I looked over at Anthony, who seemed to be thinking hard, too, focusing on the traffic. I put my hand on the back of his neck, leaned toward him, and kissed him on the cheek. He kept his eyes on the road but turned his face a little and quickly kissed me back.

  “The only thing is …” I began. “I mean, I just want you to know that, well, if you hadn’t already guessed, I’m a little messed up. I’m not … I don’t know. I’ve had a hard time, I guess. And I have a feeling it’s gonna be a while before I’m really all right, you know? I’m not saying you have to wait for me to be okay or anything. I understand if you totally want to run.”

  He made a face to suggest I was being ridiculous. “Um, I think I’ll stick around, thanks,” he said.

  “No really.” I wanted this out now, before I got too deep. “Like I said. It’s complicated. And I don’t want you to run away. But I feel like you should know that about me.” I sighed. “But at least now, I feel like, I’m better enough to know that I have to get better still. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “It’s like, your parents, or your family or whatever, you think that’s what’s normal. When you don’t know any better, you think, this is how everybody lives. And then you find out that’s not true. And it’s kind of a shock.”

  I nodded as he spoke.

  “This is embarrassing, but I had this one social worker and she was like, ‘Anthony, you can choose. You know, you can choose how you want to be in this world.’ She was like, ‘You can go on fighting and being angry all the time, finding an insult in everything anyone says or does, or you can choose to be different, not be that guy all the time.’ She said, ‘You know, it might be hard at first, but in the end it’s a lot less work. A lot less energy.’ Which was kind of a funny way to put it, but it stuck with me, you know? At the time when she said it, I was pretty much like, ‘Eff you, lady,’ but you know it stuck with me and it was true.”

  I tried to imagine Anthony, with his gentle eyes, so angry.

  “I’m glad you’re not angry all the time anymore,” I said.

  “Me too,” he answered softly.

  “Why? Why were you so angry?”

  He stared into the traffic, but I could tell he was looking way past the car in front of us. “I don’t know. I mean, it was dumb. I’m not like that anymore, not at all. I haven’t even, like, exchanged harsh words with anyone in literally years. You know? And before that, in my family, I always had the reputation … I was always known as, like, the ‘sensitive’ one. You know? The artistic one? But then, when I was in junior high, we went into care—foster care—for a while. And, well, you don’t really wanna be a sensitive boy in foster care.” He smiled in that way that told me there was a lot he wasn’t saying.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “So, I guess I was just really pissed, really angry, for a while there.”

  “I get it,” I said. I waited a beat, watching the driver of the car next to us, a lady, singing along to a radio I couldn’t hear. “Why were you in foster care?”

  He made a grimace. “Aw, my folks,” he started and stopped. He thought for a minute and then continued. “My mom … my mom never met an illegal substance she didn’t like. No, I’m kidding. My mom’s, like, the sweetest lady you’ll ever meet. But they both, my mom and my dad, they both have drug problems, you know? My dad’s a really good dude too. I feel bad complaining about them. And they’ve been doing real good lately. They just … you know. Drugs.”

  “That stinks.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “My dad got sick and then my mom got arrested … So, we were in care. Me and my brothers—they split us up. I’ve got three brothers. Gio, in the city, and Johnny, who’s got his own problems now, and then Vince, the little guy. It was just really good when we were all back together again, you know? My brothers drive me crazy, but you know, without them what do I got?”

  I nodded like I understood, but I couldn’t imagine, not really.

  “So,” I said, “Gio and Johnny and Vince and … Tony?”

  “Nah, they call me ‘Ant’—my mother’s Italian, in case you were wondering.”

  “I see,” I said. “I like that. Ant. Can I call you that?”

  “You can call me whatever you want, Iffy.”

  Ant and Iffy. Iffy and Ant. Perfect.

  Chapter 29

  When we finally got to Coney Island, Anthony said, “Two hours, wow. We coulda driven all the way to Monticello.”

  “It didn’t feel like two hours,” I said.

  “Mermaid Avenue,” he said, gazing out the windshield, unguarded wonder in his voice. “That’s cool.”

  “Spot!” I cried. The car screeched to a halt and Anthony pulled over.

  “It’s ninety-seven degrees out there—hope you’re keeping cool!” the deejay on the radio chirped before Anthony turned the car off. He leaned over and kissed me and we grabbed our stuff and headed for the beach.

  We stood at the shoreline and I looked left and right. The beach was so packed it might as well have been a dance club. I hadn’t been around so many people for as long as I could remember.

  �
��Let’s go in,” I said to Anthony. We found a little spot to lay down the towel I’d brought and piled our stuff on it.

  “It’s okay to leave it?” Anthony asked, nodding at our things.

  “The beach is like, the one place in New York where you can trust people not to steal your stuff,” I explained. “Don’t know why. Must be some kind of honor code.”

  “Okay then. Let’s go!” He took my hand. We made our way through the people, the moms standing in the shallow water talking and watching their kids, and the little boys jumping in and out of the water in their tighty-whitey underpants, and the girls running with spilling buckets of sea water, and the other kids almost swimming, but more like crawling, with their butts in the air in the shallow water.

  Once we got close enough, we just took off. Still holding hands, we ran into the waves.

  It was cold. Not so cold it took your breath away, but cold for, like thirty seconds and then it started to feel right. We finally let go of each other’s hands and swam out, fighting the waves, checking in with each other before going further and coming back together again. Once we got away from the other people we treaded water together, talking and kissing. We were totally those people who make out in the water. Me and Lizette used to laugh at those couples, the people who seemed to think that just because they were in the ocean, nobody could see what they were doing. But whatever. It was like nobody else really existed for us anyway. Just me and Ant in the Atlantic. It was perfect.

  I’d hold my nose with my thumb and forefinger and tip my head back, get my whole self wet, and then emerge, wipe my eyes, run my hands down my soaked hair. It felt so good. I did it over and over again.

  We stayed in the water for an hour, I bet, treading water and kissing and laughing and talking about all the things we were gonna do. We were gonna raise chickens, we said, and eat the fresh eggs for breakfast each day. We were gonna become lawyers and open an office together in a small town so we could work together and have lunch together and spend all our time together. We were gonna have, like, eleven kids, some biological and some adopted, and raise them up trilingual.

  “We can get married, right here, under the Cyclone,” Anthony said, holding me around the waist.

  I kissed him on the nose.

  “Anthony, I have to tell you something,” I buried my face in his neck, embarrassed. We bounced in the waves.

  He patted my hair. “Okay,” he said.

  “Iphigenia,” I whispered in his ear.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Iphigenia. That’s my real name.”

  “If-fa-jen …?”

  “If-ah-ja-nye-ah.”

  “That’s so beautiful,” he murmured. “That’s so beautiful, Iphigenia.”

  I smiled into his neck.

  When we finally got out we were so tired and hungry and thirsty.

  “Let’s hit the boardwalk,” Anthony suggested.

  We rinsed off in the cold-water outdoor showers. I had brought a little soap, so I took the opportunity to get pretty clean. Then I went in the bathroom and changed; Anthony did the same. I’d also brought some of Corinne’s lipstick and a hairbrush. Looking at myself in the cloudy, warped mirror, I felt positively dressed up.

  Emerging from the dank bathroom into the bright, humid evening, I expected to see Anthony waiting where we parted, at the front of the building. He wasn’t there and I lost my breath for a moment, feeling perhaps that he had never been there at all, that I had made him up and it was actually only me, alone, in Coney Island. But then I looked to my right and there he was, his faced turned to one side as he carried a huge stroller up the wooden stairs that lead from the beach to the boardwalk. In the stroller was a sleeping child and attached to the stroller was a big, unwieldy beach bag that bounced against his side.

  Once at the top, Anthony put the whole apparatus down gently. A woman who had hovered around him was nodding and smiling and I saw Anthony smile back and shrug before heading back down the stairs.

  He turned and saw me and loped over, still smiling.

  “You helped that lady?” I asked, even though I didn’t have to.

  He shrugged again, a little embarrassed. “I mean, she was trying to do it herself. It was gonna be a disaster.”

  “Who are you?” I grinned, shaking my head.

  He shook his head, too, like I was crazy and then he raised his eyebrows. “You look amazing.”

  I grabbed his arm and squeezed it. I kissed him. I wished I could tell him all the things I felt.

  He took my hand and we started down the boardwalk, gliding together past the carnival games, past the clam bars and T-shirt shops.

  We stopped in one of the gift shops and I lingered, picking up and putting down different bright, plastic, colorful things—Frisbees and beach-themed drinking cups, sunglasses shaped like seashells. So many things to waste money on. And yet I wanted it, all of it, suddenly and painfully. I wanted to wear pink flip-flops and a fish-print wraparound skirt. I wanted a snow globe of the Cyclone, seashell wind chimes, a conch with the words “Coney Island” emblazoned in gold.

  In the end, I settled on two postcards, one a picture of a seagull on the beach and one a picture of the shops on the boardwalk. Pictures to remember our vacation.

  “We should go to Nathan’s,” I said finally, looking once more around the shop before stepping out. “The famous hot dogs?”

  Anthony widened his eyes in anticipation. “Sounds good to me. I think I saw it on the main road before.”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  I clung to Anthony’s hand as we walked in the heat and the crowds. It seemed to me that every day at Coney Island was like a carnival. Every day was a celebration. A drunk woman careened into me, beer from her red cup splashing over the side, just missing me and slapping on the ground. “So sorry!” she hooted over her shoulder. I smiled indulgently. I didn’t mind at all. It felt good to be part of the party.

  On a side street, we had to pass this big, industrial-looking building, its face covered with huge, lurid, old-timey paintings of “freaks.” There was the bearded lady and a guy swallowing swords and another lady all wrapped up in a snake. There was a real-life guy in a top hat and a woman juggling fire on a platform at the front, talking to folks passing by.

  “Come on in, ladies and gents,” said the man. “See the unseeable, experience the exotic. Have your minds blown.” He raised his eyebrows, pulled a face of astonishment. “For only five dollars, you can have your horizons expanded … Hey there, you sir, you look like an adventurer,” he pointed to an older, tank top wearing guy in the crowd. “Come on in, now. Don’t tell me you’re too scared.” The old guy waved his arm, like, “get outta here” and turned away, annoyed. I was gonna keep walking, but Anthony stopped to listen. “And you two,” said the man in the top hat, pointing at us, “the lovebirds. Have you ever seen a two-headed baby?”

  “Nope,” Anthony answered.

  “Of course you haven’t!” cried the man. “So, now’s your chance. Let’s bring that little lady—your daughter, sir?” Here, everyone, including Anthony, laughed. “Let’s bring her in. Why, she’s so very small, we could put her in a jar and exhibit her. She’s a Thumbelina, isn’t she?”

  I laughed, but grimaced up at Anthony, embarrassed.

  “Come on in,” said the guy.

  “Can’t,” said Anthony. “We got places to be.”

  “I can see that,” said the guy. “I can see that about you. There’s something special about you two, I can tell that right away. Something very special about her—she’s a special person indeed!” And here he clapped his hands and then stopped and looked at me hard and then looked back at Anthony and sure, I knew it was a bit, designed to make us feel like he knew something about us, designed to get us to part with five bucks each and go to his dumb show, but it gave me chills anyway. What was it that he thought he c
ould see?

  Anthony put his arm around my neck and kissed me on the top of my head. “I told you,” he murmured as we walked away. “I told you you were somebody.” I stayed facing the barker as my body walked away, only turning at the very last minute.

  Chapter 30

  I slept on the ride home. I didn’t mean to, and I felt kind of bad letting Anthony navigate all by himself, but I couldn’t help it. I had won a big stuffed Snoopy on one of those water gun games and Anthony had won a stuffed basketball on a shooting hoops game and I was leaning on them against the car window and I just closed my eyes for a minute and then the next time I opened them we were stopped at a light on the edge of the park.

  “Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Anthony said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my mouth dry. “I didn’t even …”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It was very sweet. You were right in the middle of a sentence and then, boom!”

  “Really?” I said. “I don’t even remember.”

  He chuckled. “Something about the waves.”

  My mind was muddy, but I remembered what I had been saying. “Yeah. I guess I was saying that I hadn’t felt this way since I was a kid. Do you remember that feeling? When you’d go to the beach and you’d spend so much time in the water that when you went to bed at night you’d feel like you were still floating, rolling on the waves? That was how I was feeling right before I fell asleep.”

  “We didn’t go to the beach a whole lot when I was a kid,” Anthony said, pulling the car over. We were home. “Ugh. I hate for this day to end.” He turned the car off.

  “I hate it too.”

  “I have to get the car back.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. “I had such a good time with you.”

  “Me too.” He leaned over to kiss me. It must’ve been the hundredth kiss that day, but it was as wonderful as the very first one. “I love you, Iphigenia. I know we just met, but it’s true. I totally love you.”