by Lily King
My mother gets up and rinses off the plate in the kitchen. She takes her time. Eventually the dishwasher squeaks open and the plate is slotted in. I know there’s nothing else for her to do in there but she stays in there, thinking.
I watch Garvey smoke.
“Dad and Mrs.—I mean Catherine—are married now,” I say.
“I heard. A little Nassau combo platter: divorce, wedding, and a nice golden tan for the holidays.”
“Frank’s got your room.”
Garvey snorts. “I’ll have to show him my Playboy stash.”
“He already found it.”
“Really? Cagey bugger.”
“He’s weird. “
“With a mother like that.”
“How’s Heidi?”
“Who?”
I give him a look.
“She’s got a new boyfriend. He’s very dependable.” He says the word dependable with nunlike primness, tilting his head, pursing his lips.
I laugh and that eggs him on.
“He shows up at precisely the right time, he says precisely the right things, and he always, always has a condom.”
Frank has condoms. When we’re really bored, Patrick and I sneak them out of his room and fill them with water and lob them at Elyse. She calls them greasy balloons and shrieks whenever she sees one.
“Do you have a new girlfriend?”
“Not really.”
“What about Deena?”
“Who?” This time he really doesn’t know who I’m talking about.
“That girl in your apartment in Somerville.”
A grimace, as brief as a gust of wind, passes across his face. “I never had anything to do with her.” He’s a bad liar. He keeps talking to cover it up. “She’s a very fucked-up young woman.”
That’s what she said about you, I want to say but I don’t. I don’t want to push him any lower than he already is.
“And you, my little hermitoid. What is going on in your sixth-grade world?”
I knew he’d ask this and I know just the kinds of thing he likes to hear so I prepared just the right story. “Funny you should ask,” I say, warming up. He smiles and I continue. “There’s this new boy, Kevin.”
“Kevin what?”
“Kevin Mackerel.”
“Mackerel? Like the fish?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“Oh, Kevin Mackerel,” he begins to sing. “Is he a fish or a man? I can’t tell and nobody can!”
My mother comes in then, all fired up with new reasons why Garvey has to stay in college and how she will talk to Al about how to proceed, and I never get to tell my story about how Kevin Mackerel got suspended for farting so much.
No way, my brother would have said.
Yes, way, I would have said, he did so. He just kept doing it really loudly and really stinkily and wouldn’t stop. He got warnings, demerits, a note home but nothing stopped him. So now he’s out of school until December first.
No way! I can hear him, his hands pulling at his hair, his face full of real laughter.
The next morning we get ready to go up to Dad and Catherine’s. We’ll have lunch there and dinner with Mom. I wear a black velvet dress. It has white lace cuffs and a white lace collar.
“Oh look, it’s the first pilgrim!” Garvey says.
He’s wearing the same jeans and a faded flannel shirt with a ripped pocket that flaps around. His hair is matted in the back. Because we’re going to see Dad, I notice these things. So does my mother. “The shower’s free,” she says.
“Oh goodie,” he says, and lights another cigarette.
We drive up in Mom’s car. I know this is a mistake. We should have left earlier and walked.
My father comes out on the back porch. He’s laughing and shaking his head.
“I thought,” he begins, fake chuckling, waiting to make sure we’re in earshot, “I thought your mother had decided to come for Thanksgiving dinner!”
They shake hands. I haven’t seen them together since the beginning of last summer. I’ve never noticed their similarity before, the sloping backs, the narrow eyes.
“When d’you get here?”
“Me and a buddy drove up last night.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You’re looking good, Dad.”
“Can’t complain too much. Things good?”
“Yeah, things are good.”
“Good.”
I can’t bear the fakeness and flee to find Patrick.
Frank is in the kitchen, fishing through a drawer in the kitchen.
“Hey,” I say.
He grunts back, then, realizing my usefulness, calls out, “Where do you guys keep the tape around here?”
“I dunno.” I keep moving. “Where do you keep it?”
Patrick and Elyse are watching the parade on TV from the recliners. Patrick moves over for me. His thumb is red and shiny with little indentations under the knuckle from his teeth. He’s been sucking it, which he does when he watches TV and forgets people can see him.
A ten-story Snoopy floats down a crowded street.
I hate that parade, and get up.
I hear the screen door slam.
From the French windows in the living room, I see Garvey walking onto the tennis court. It’s the first time he’s seen it, seen the garden gone. I can’t remember if I told him about it. The court’s surface is unblemished, a deep dark green with bright white lines. He stands at the far service line facing me but he can’t see me. He looks small. As I pass the stairs, I can hear Dad in the upstairs hallway, whispering loudly.
“It’s a disgrace. Honestly. He’s got on a filthy pair of jeans and an old shirt that smells like cat piss. And his hair.” I know my father is waving his hands around his head. “It’s a goddamn hornet’s nest. You couldn’t take him anywhere. ‘Me and my buddy drove up last night.’ Goes to Harvard and he can’t even speak English. You couldn’t take him to the club anymore. You couldn’t. And she doesn’t care. She let him leave the house like that. And then she lets him drive up here in the car I bought her! He has the nerve to bring that up here to my house!”
And then he’s downstairs, at the bar, rattling in the ice bucket, cracking the paper on a new bottle of vodka. I go and stand beside him, watching him carry out the motions. On top of the vodka he pours a few drops of vermouth. He puts the tops back on the vodka and vermouth and then, with a small spoon, slides out four tiny onions. I put out my hand and he drops one into it. He puts the rest in his drink, which he stirs with a finger. He straightens the line of bottles, the line of glasses, wipes off the spoon and the counter with a paper towel. Only when he is sitting in his chair does he close his eyes and take his first sip. The clock above him says 11:35. The turkey is on the stove, pale and pimply. Catherine hasn’t put it in the oven yet.
I sit beside him on the floor. At some point during the day, I have to tell my father that I’m going back to my mother’s until Saturday morning, until Garvey leaves. “You have a good week at school?”
“Yeah,” I say, stunned by the question, wishing I prepared for it. Then I realize I can tell my Kevin Mackerel story. This time I won’t use his distracting name; I’ll get right to the point. “A kid in my class got suspended for farting.”
He’s bent over his drink. He drinks and shakes his head. It seems like he hasn’t really heard. On another day he might jerk up, eyes big and delighted, and say, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Then I remember Patrick will have already told him.
“So who’s coming for lunch?” I say.
“No one, thank God.”
All my life we’ve had old Mrs. Waverly who had her voice box removed and buzzes out her words with the help of a little silver gadget that looks like an electric razor that she presses to her throat, Mr. Harris who owns the garden shop, and Cousin Morgan, Grindy’s cousin who lost a leg and most of an arm in a war. They are all Mom’s people and they’ll never come to this house again.
My father lifts
his lighter to his neck and speaks in Mrs. Waverly’s robotic rhythm. “Hel/lo/Da/ley. Are/you/en/joy/ing/school/this/year?” My mother never found his imitations funny, even when he pretended to be Cousin Morgan insisting on passing the heavy gravy boat with his one hand and spilling it in my lap, which did happen one year. My mother’s disapproval always made it hard not to laugh, but without it, it isn’t as funny. Even my father isn’t enjoying it. He starts to pull his arm out of his sleeve to do the gravy routine and then stops and looks at me like he’s wondering where he is. Then he smiles and shakes his head. “Jesus Christ. Good riddance to all of them.”
He goes back to the bar and I go into the dining room. It’s set with Catherine’s china, green and brown. I go to the sideboard my mother didn’t take and open the top drawer. There they are, the place cards with the painted wooden fruit glued onto a corner and all the names in my mother’s big handwriting: Olivia (Mrs. Waverly), Donald (Mr. Harris), Cousin Morgan. There is also Gardiner, Meredith, Garvey, and Daley. And way in the back are Dad (Grindy), Mom (Nonnie), Judy (my mother’s sister), and Ashley, Hannah, and Lindsey (Judy’s daughters). I scoop up every place card and stuff them in my pockets. Then I go out to find Garvey.
He’s still on the tennis court, with Frank. They’re playing in bare feet. I’m not sure if Garvey has met Frank before. They aren’t playing by the regular rules. The alleys are in and you get two extra points if you hit the other person with the ball. Four extra if you ace your serve. And you can serve from anywhere on the court, even right at the net, which Garvey is doing when I come down the old rose garden steps and stand at the green netting that goes around the whole thing. He whales on the ball and it nicks Frank in the shin before skidding off.
“Hit and ace!” Garvey says. “Six points.”
They both crack up.
“Shit,” Frank squeaks. He’s bent over, his hands on his knees for support, laughing hard. I’ve never seen him laugh before.
I go around and sit on a lawn chair at the side of the court.
Garvey holds his racquet out to me. “Wanna sub in?”
I shake my head. I want him to be friends with Frank. If he’s friends with Frank, maybe he’ll come up here to Myrtle Street with me more often. I like having him here.
Frank serves the next one and Garvey returns it, a lob that Frank lets bounce as he prepares for an overhead slam. Garvey says, “Oh fuck,” and bolts off the court, through the netting, and into the brown leaves beyond. Frank’s slam bounces just inside the baseline, then flies up over the netting. To reach it, Garvey runs through leaves and brush and, with a yelp of delight, lobs it back. Frank is laughing too hard to finish the point.
It’s the happiest game of tennis I’ve ever seen.
Patrick and Elyse come out and join me in the chairs. It gets colder and we have to run in for hats and mittens, though Frank and Garvey have unbuttoned their shirts.
After a long time, we are called in for Thanksgiving dinner.
Catherine is wearing a silky lavender shirt cinched over her short skirt by a gold chain belt. She hasn’t done up very many buttons on the shirt and I can see the lace of her bra just beneath the four heavy necklaces on her freckled chest.
She doesn’t bother with hellos or a Happy Thanksgiving to me or Garvey. She says, “I need plates, now” to me, and, “Will you open these fucking bottles of wine?” to Garvey. She’s holding a carving knife and already talking with her eyes closed.
But Garvey, who often kills my mother’s bad moods with kindness, isn’t going to let her get away with that. “Don’t I get to kiss the bride first?” he says, opening his arms.
Catherine puts the knife down hard on the counter but then gives up a small smile.
Even though there is only one less person than we normally have for Thanksgiving, it feels like a sparse gathering. My mother always said a prayer, but Catherine just starts cutting into her meat.
“Ahem.” My father, from the other end of the table, looks at her in pretend sternness. “Aren’t we forgetting something?”
“Oh, yes.” She looks up at the ceiling. “Thanks for nothing, Lord. Next time you cook the goddamn turkey.”
My father loves it. “You’s a funny one,” he says.
She kisses the air in his direction noisily.
He puts out two hands and squeezes, like he’s squeezing her boobs.
Garvey raises one eyebrow at me from across the table, and I have to look down in my lap to keep from laughing.
“So.” My father turns to Garvey. “Classes good?”
“Yup.”
“What’re you taking?” It seems less out of curiosity than to get Garvey to prove he’s actually going to college.
“Calculus, Middle English, Psych, Anatomy.”
“Anatomy? You find out where your dick is yet?”
“Jesus, Dad. You’ve got little kids here.” He turns to Elyse who is finger painting with gravy on the table. “How old are you?”
Without stopping to look up, she says, “None of your beeswax.”
“I’m just asking if you’ve found out where your dick is.”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Garvey says, and then he seems to make a decision. He turns to Catherine. “What was Nassau like?”
She doesn’t look at him either. “Hot.”
“I have some friends who lived there for a couple years. They said there’s a grotto out on the north side of the island with all these sea lions and then there’s this funky bar where—”
She waves those things away. “We didn’t see any of that stuff. We just stayed at the resort.”
“They must have had some good-looking tennis courts down there.”
Catherine nods.
Garvey pours himself another glass of wine. He’s the only one drinking it. “What do you wear when you play tennis?” he asks her. “I mean, are women switching over to shorts or do they still have to wear skirts?”
“I like wearing skirts.”
“You have more freedom of movement, don’t you? Maybe that’s why Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs.”
“That was a setup,” Catherine says.
“You think it was rigged?”
“No pun intended,” I say. No one hears me.
“Of course it was rigged,” my father says. “He could have beaten her with his left toe if he’d wanted to.”
“So why didn’t he?’
“Because he got a hell of a lot more money for losing.”
“He let himself be a laughingstock for a couple of grand?”
“More than that.”
“Where are you getting your information, Dad, from Don Finch?”
My father laughs in spite of himself. Everyone at the table does. Even Elyse knows Don Finch is the worst player at the club and the most hilarious to watch. There’s a story that he once played a whole set without making contact with the ball once.
“You know who I saw at the club the other day? Gus Barlow.”
“Gus Barlow,” Garvey says. “Shit. How is he?” Gus was a classmate of Garvey’s at Ashing Academy.
“He’s good.” I can tell my father is going somewhere with this. So can Garvey. “He’s a good kid.” My father puts down his fork and knife slowly. “You know, if you cleaned yourself up a bit we could go over there for a meal this weekend.”
Garvey shakes his head. “My buffet days at the clubhouse are definitely over.”
“Yeah? You’re done with the club. Too good for the club now, I guess.” He picks up his silverware again then points them at Garvey. “How does your mother feel about the way you look?”
“She hasn’t mentioned it.”
“Well I can tell you that when she lived in this house she would never have let you come to the Thanksgiving table looking like that. Never.”
“I guess she’s just lost her marbles.”
“I think she has. I really do.” His face is bright red.
“Well good for her,” Catherine mumbles.
&nbs
p; Garvey smiles at her. “Said the new wife, ambiguously.”
Catherine laughs loudly.
“Garvey, I gotta show you something after dinner,” Frank says.
“What?” Patrick asks.
“Shut up,” Frank says.
“Is that jade?” my brother asks, touching the chunks of stone around Catherine’s wrist.
“Jade and mother of pearl.”
My father is glaring at her. She pulls her arm away.
Garvey and I do the dishes. There is no discussion about this. Everyone else brings their plates to the sink and walks away.
“Cinderella and Cinderello, the two stepchildren left in the scullery all alone.” He feigns hunger and weariness, limply carrying the turkey platter to the counter. “Hey, I have a movie idea.” He always has movie ideas. “Oh my God, it’s going to make us millions. Okay, it’s Thanksgiving night and this old man lives in a house all alone. His children came that afternoon with the meal but now they’ve all gone home to their families. He’s been married three or four times but all his wives have left him and he’s all alone on Thanksgiving night, all doped up on tryptophan but too depressed to sleep. And then he hears this noise outside. He goes out into his yard and there’s this enormous turkey, the size of a house, gobbling at him. But the turkey has a human face, a gruesome one, like Mrs. Perth’s face. You have her this year, right? I still have nightmares about her. And this turkey has all the man’s wives tucked under its wings. They’re all naked and they all have papers for him to sign because he screwed every single one of them out of his money.”
Dad has come in to make a drink and is standing there, listening.
“Knock it off, Garvey,” he says. “I don’t want you corrupting her. She’s an innocent little girl and she doesn’t need a slob like you filling her head with bullshit.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“I’ll tell you something. Any bullshit either of you has gotten comes from your mother. Look at you. Just look at you. I tell you, I feel sorry for you with a mother like that. She left me a goddamn note right there.” He points to the counter because the kitchen table isn’t there to point to anymore. “Right there. Wouldn’t even tell me to my face she was leaving.” I think for a moment he’s going to cry.
“She was scared you’d hit her.”
