by Steve Amick
But the whole thing was just too tiring so he settled for making the sour face and left it at that. He would just go inside to bed, leaving the porch and the night to his mixed-up kids and the mixed-up people they’d decided to drag into his life.
ANOTHER THING WAS HAPPENING around the house now that Von found particularly irksome. There seemed to be an awful lot of congregating of the help and it not infrequently seemed to involve roasting a pig. Right up in their yard area, between the main house and the little house with Marita’s half-assed red door. The line between them was getting damned blurred. All other years, before this elopement thing of his son’s, when the pickers weren’t working, they tended to stay down in the little migrant shacks along the other side of the orchard. And they liked it that way, he was sure. They needed their privacy as much as he did. Why would they want to subject themselves to the presence of their boss during their time off? They wouldn’t. Just like he didn’t need to have to close his porch windows to the smell of burning pork and that mariachi-sounding squeezebox racket.
Between this ongoing fiesta and the Japanese blossom-sniffing giant, it was getting so he was feeling edgy just about everywhere he turned. Never mind that he owned the place. It felt to him as though all of vonBushberger’s—a place that anyone from the four corners of the county would instantly recognize as vonBushberger’s, even without the aid of that sign he had out front and the old faded shingles that spelled it out on the big barn—was rapidly being overrun by folks who just were not vonBushbergers.
But when he tried to get a little support from his wife about this, all Carol did was laugh and remind him the Guatemalans were like Marita’s family. In fact, some of them actually were her family, which meant they were his in-laws.
“I understand they’re in-laws now. I don’t like it, of course, but I understand it.”
Her next response was even less helpful: “You know, Von, just yesterday, Carroll O’Connor died, so if they ever reprise that role . . . who knows, maybe you’d have a shot at it.”
He didn’t care to think what the hell that was supposed to mean. Jesus god, it was like he was all alone in this, like she was having her own conversation and not even involved in his. “I’m just saying,” he said, “that it’s going to encourage them all to come up to the house and hang around the yard all the time.” It had already happened on two occasions—that he knew of. Soon enough, she’d have chickens and goats living right inside the little house. But he didn’t say this.
Carol sighed. “Trust me, Von. They don’t want to hang around our dusty old yard. They just want to see Marita once in a while. They miss her. I’m sure that in-law thing cuts both ways.”
“What are you saying? Santi Santiago isn’t so crazy about me?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s crazy about you. It’s like Hepburn and Tracy, the romance you two have.”
There she went with her sarcasm. After three decades together, she still didn’t get how unproductive her smarmy comments were—especially on an orchard, where being productive was such a damn hard undertaking each day.
“Well, for the record, I’ve got nothing against him,” he said. “I understand her immediate family might want to visit her up here, but isn’t there some way we can keep it at that before it gets out of hand and her friends are up here with every third cousin and friend of the third cousin?”
“What do you suggest, Von? We issue security passes?”
“No . . . I mean, we could just keep a list. Just . . . maybe stop people and ask them their name and see if they’re on the list.”
Carol scowled and walked out of the room, making a little exasperated sound with her mouth that came awfully close to a Bronx cheer. Clearly, she didn’t get that he was just trying to hold everything together for them; to keep everything from changing and spinning out of control. Everything seemed to be heading in that direction since his dad died the year before and it was probably only going to get worse. He just had a feeling.
SCIENCE HAD NOTHING TO DO with the walk under the stars Brenda took with Miki. She vowed she wouldn’t talk to him about anything to do with his project, even if that felt like safe territory and anything else made her feel like she was being a jabbering fool. Well, she thought, relenting, maybe they could talk a little science. How could that be avoided out in the middle of all these natural phenomena—the stars, the dew, the crickets? But nothing official, no shoptalk.
They were out here, she told herself, because the night was so clear it would almost have seemed awkward and contrived not to wander out into it and look up at the stars. She pointed out the constellations and explained each name. He knew a few, but in Japanese, of course. He explained that, despite a relative similarity in latitude, because of pollution and cloud cover and city lights back home, when he’d been living under almost the same sky, most of what they were seeing was, to him, as new as shiny toys in a big store window. And she loved the joy she heard in his voice as he repeated back each name.
“What about this aurora borealis?” he asked. “The northern lightning you also call it?”
“Close. The northern lights. Sure.”
“You can see this where we are, yes?”
“Later in the year you can. More like September, Labor Day at the earliest. But you won’t be around for that.”
He had no response to this and for a few minutes all she could hear was the gentle swish of his long-legged stride cutting through the dewy waist-high grass. She knew he was trying to match her shorter stride and the hesitation made a little waltzlike cadence as he kept slowing himself. Added to that was the softest snatch of an accordion drifting from somebody’s boom box over in the picker shacks, and the combination made her think of Cajun two-step and how a bolder woman would speak up and point this out, maybe even get this guy dancing there in the grass. Make a game of it. But she wasn’t even a slightly bold woman.
They moved through the north forty with its rows of bush-high seedlings and then dipped down, across the dirt access road, and into the Royal Anns where it was harder to see the stars, only in snatches between the rows, making little shafts of perforated night where moments before they’d seen a whole blanket. But it smelled sweeter here under the lush canopies, and the grass was kept mowed back and wasn’t wet against their legs and so they kept walking. Brenda had never walked with a man like this, out here, and she wondered how long they could go on without it becoming awkward. Eventually, of course, they’d run out of property and then what would they do? Turn around and start over?
Sometimes she really had to kick herself for being such a “late bloomer” as her mom put it. By rights she should have mastered all this awkward circling years ago, as a teenaged girl. She should have had more dates—thinner glasses, less braces, less bulk, less interest in things boys found geeky, less of the awful similarity she had back then to Velma on Scooby-Doo. To arrive where she was now so socially ill-equipped, with such an embarrassing dearth of experience—it was as if she’d managed to earn her master’s without taking a basic undergraduate requirement her freshman year.
When they reached the top of the rise at the far end of the Royal Anns, the highest point in the orchard, she pointed to the west, to the slightly darker vista below. “If there was a moon,” she said, “you’d be able to see it better, but right out there, that’s Lake Michigan.”
He stood so close, looking out toward the dark negative of the lake, and when he sighed deeply, his size made it a demonstrative motion. “You must have had the perfect childhood—this place, your family . . .”
The laugh this produced in her came out as a yelp and she had to cover her mouth, which only exacerbated the problem. He seemed to think she was laughing at him and it was embarrassing and she was so nervous, she snickered harder, snorting snot out of her nose. It was horrible. He turned to her, seemed to stiffen, wanted to know what he had said. He sounded hurt, ridiculed.
She didn’t know what to do, no idea at all. “Sorry!” she said. “I’m not l
aughing at you, really.” She wiped her nose clean, looked up at him, that simple, open face; he was as tall as her dad. Her inclination was to study this situation some more, analyze it, but she pushed that aside and darted up on tiptoe, kissing him fast; a real short, snappy kiss, getting it over with.
She stepped back and tried to gauge his response to this experiment. It seemed as if he was still standing stiffly at attention and she felt like such a goon. But then his long arms closed around her, pulling her back in, pulling her up to him, and now it was a real kiss and now it was soft and lingering and tasted, slightly, of homemade cherry-vanilla ice cream, and this time, she felt her feet start to lift up off the ground as he dangled her in the air.
Much later, as they walked back through the sparkling dew, holding hands, he announced, “I’d like to see this aurora borealis.”
34
“WHAT’S WITH THE WHALE?”
They were standing at the end of his driveway, Courtney squinting at his dad’s new sign, her perfect little nose scrunched up like someone cut one. He told her he didn’t think it was a whale, though honestly, he wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be.
“Your mom’s got a weight problem or something?”
“No.”
“Your dad?”
“Not really. No. And like I say, it’s not a whale.” But he couldn’t remember now what it was. A salmon? No, salmon were red or pink or something.
“Whatever,” she said. “Kind of tacky.”
She’d never been there before, never shown any interest, but when he’d mentioned that his parents would be out most of the evening, she shrugged and said, sure, whatever, what the hell did she care? And now, entering the house, even though the Denali wasn’t in the driveway and his dad had said they’d be away at some annual pig roast, down at the Indian casino, till “quite late,” he moved briskly ahead, calling out Mom? Dad? just making sure.
She glanced around, her nose wrinkled again by something. Maybe she was allergic to all the stupid Hudson Bay blankets his dad insisted they leave scattered around the living room—wool, for Christ’s sake—like it wasn’t eighty degrees out, like they were nineteenth-century Yoopers operating a lighthouse up on Lake Superior or French trappers hoping to do some trading with the Indians. Anyway, something was making her sniff and crinkle up her nose. “Cute,” she said.
He led her to his bedroom and stood in the center of the little faux-rustic oval rug, right on the moose, hoping she wouldn’t see it, and pulled her close. He wrapped his arms around her and put his mouth on hers and tipped her back, easing her down onto the narrow target of his bed. It was all so new: he’d never been with her on an actual mattress yet, in a house they were supposed to be in.
He had his fingers around one nipple when she said, “They going to be home soon?” He told her no, there was plenty of time. It was totally safe. Maybe this didn’t reassure her, because when he started kissing her again, she stopped him. “All right, all right,” she said, pushing against his chest, sitting up, “give it a break, will you?” He started apologizing. “Kidding,” she said, though she didn’t look very jokey, standing now, moving toward the bedroom door. She looked bored. “Where do I pee?” He pointed and then lay back down on his bed with a sigh he hoped she heard, and waited for her return.
This had seemed like such a good idea. They had the place to themselves, at least for a little while. The coast was clear. Only now she wasn’t in the mood. He could tell.
Normally, he could hear the toilet from his bed. He heard nothing. After a while, he knew he better go investigate. He found her way down the hall, in his parents’ bedroom, standing in front of his mom’s dresser. She was going through stuff in his mom’s jewelry boxes, trying on a necklace in the mirror. He came up behind her and she looked up and locked eyes with him in the mirror, not startled at all. She pulled open the top drawer. “Think your mom’s got a special battery-powered friend in here?”
He didn’t want to say stop it, but he didn’t want to look either. She pulled all the drawers open and closed each in turn with a dismissive slam. The bottom one was locked, which surprised him. He didn’t even know it had a lock.
She stood there staring at the locked drawer, nodding approvingly. “This is where they keep the Polaroids,” she said. Then she snatched the necklace up again and held it around her neck. It was the pearls, his mother’s favorite jewelry for special occasions. He was surprised she had brought them up here rather than leaving them down in the Birmingham house where she had more formal social functions.
“What do you think?” Courtney said. “Pearls and I have this thing together, don’t you think?”
What he was actually thinking was how much he wanted her to put them away and go back to his room, but he said, “Yeah. Sure. It’s nice. You look great.”
“Uncle Matt says it’s like there’s these oysters, okay? Way off in the ocean somewhere? And they somehow just know what my skin is like. But I didn’t bring any with this summer. They’re all back in Chicago. These are okay. They’re kind of cute, I guess.” She put them back in the box and turned her attention to his parents’ bed. “So this is where they do it, huh?” Turning her back to it suddenly, arms out, she flopped, Christlike, on the bed and bounced there lightly for a moment. “Big yawn, I’m sure. Don’t you think?”
He didn’t want to think.
“Or maybe not,” she said. “Maybe they’d surprise us. Maybe they’re wild.” She started bouncing dramatically, suddenly at sea.
“Gross,” he said. “My parents?”
She giggled, rolling over on her stomach, and scooched back till her legs cleared the bed and then her feet touched the floor and she angled her ass back at him, bent over the bed. “Think they do it like this? ‘Yeah, come on, baby. Give it to me . . .’ Only your mom’s big whale ass would be bigger, of course. So big you put a whale on a sign at the end of your driveway.”
Obviously, she’d never met his mom or hadn’t bothered noticing that she was like a stick. He was starting to get a little mad and he told her to stop it. “That’s a tuna on the sign, okay?”
She ignored him. “‘Give me the big meat. Slap my big whale ass with your big meat. Ooh, yeah . . . Marky won’t hear us . . . Do it, baby. Give it to me. Don’t worry about little Marky . . .’”
“Little Marky says stop it,” he said.
She kept moaning. “‘What’s a matter, lover? I’m getting too loud? Maybe you ought to fill my mouth so we don’t wake Marky. Yeah, fill my mouth with your big hot meat . . .’”
Fortunately, he felt he was starting to know her better—how to deal with her, to an extent—and he saw the endgame now, the checkmate: he slapped her butt and she shrieked and giggled and pushed up off the bed, standing up straight like a normal person, mock outrage, rubbing her butt cheek, and in that moment he was able to yank her safely out of the room. He tried to pull her back into his bedroom, but she said, “Yeah, not so much. Kind of boring.”
It kind of hurt his feelings. He wasn’t sure it showed, but she turned and saw something on his face and she made a big cartoon boo-boo pout, sort of like she was making fun of him, and patted his cheek. “Ahhhh,” she said, sympathetically. “Maybe later, though. We can come back later.” She reached around and squeezed his ass.
“Well, they’re going to come home eventually.” It was like she didn’t get that part. His parents were gone now. Why not do it now, when they wouldn’t get busted?
“Whatever.” She shrugged and led him out the front door and was bathed in light. It was dusk already, purple to the west, the Lake Michigan horizon at the end of their yard, and darker blue, with occasional flickers of yellow-green specks—fireflies—up the dirt road that led back to the village, but Courtney’s blond hair was backlit and blinding white as she stood in front of their porch. It was his dad’s new security light.
“There’s a sensor,” he explained. “My dad thinks the neighbor sneaks over here and snoops around, tries to cut down our tre
es and stuff . . .”
She said nothing, just got on her bike. It either made perfect sense to her or she wasn’t really listening. When they got back up onto the main drag, they slowed down and he pulled alongside and asked if she wanted to get some ice cream at the Daisy June or hang out at Scudder Park or catch the nine o’clock at the one little movie theater, but she said no, she’d seen the movie before and besides, she didn’t feel like sitting on those hard old-fashioned wooden seats and the place smelled like a dusty museum and it just completely sucked for her asthma.
Having run out of suggestions, Mark just pedaled along, following her in silence. In back of Ringwood Drugs, she pulled up next to the Dumpster, hopped off and dragged a plastic milk crate alongside. She stepped up on it and peered in. “Okay,” she said, stepping down and squinting at some marking on the side. “Looks like they pick up tomorrow, so there’s probably something good. I’ll be the lookout and you get in there and pull out whatever looks good.”
He didn’t get it.
“Drugstores sometimes throw out good stuff. You never know. A friend of mine, back in Lake Forest? Scored some Ritalin once. Look for whatever—candy bars, NyQuil . . .”
Courtney was so great, but she really had weird ideas about how to spend a date. When he’d asked her to do something with him tonight, none of this was what he had in mind. Still, he knew better than to argue if she was set on something. He stepped up on the crate and did a kind of vaulting horse move, like hopping a fence, and he was in, stepping on squishy cardboard boxes and trying to make out the contents, if any, in the eerie weak yellow of the streetlamp.
“Hey,” she called. “You think I looked good in that pearl necklace? Or was it too cheap?”
“No, you looked good.” He corrected himself. “You looked great.” He glanced up from the garbage, studying her over the lip of the Dumpster. She was grinning, the way she did whenever she’d suddenly ask if he had a condom on him.
