CRY UNCLE

by Judith Arnold

  “He didn’t raise me. He’s just my uncle.”

  “And he loves you, too, maybe even more than your Aunt Joyce. So it’s important to make sure your Aunt Joyce and Uncle Lawton and Ms. Whitley all realize that Uncle Joe has taught you how to respect others and be polite.”

  Lizard eyed her askance. “That’s icky.”

  “Courtesy isn’t icky.”

  “No—I mean, all those people who have to realize things. It’s icky. You know what? I’m gonna tattoo Snoot. Kitty has one on her boob. Right about...here,” she said, pointing to the left side of the doll’s breast, just above the edge of the dandelion brassiere. “She let me see it once. It was neat. I think I’m gonna tattoo Snoot.”

  “I think you’re going to take a bath,” Pamela refuted her. “And then you and I are going to have some supper. How about tuna salad?” She didn’t feel like making a big meal. The afternoon was hot and muggy, smothering her appetite. She felt overloaded, inundated by events: Mick Morrow’s capture, her impending trial testimony, Joe’s impending custody case, Lizard’s treatment of her doll. Mixed together and garnished with a discussion of tattoos, the concoction made Pamela queasy.

  “Okay,” Lizard said, swinging her doll by its ponytail and jogging toward the porch. “But make sure you put the right amount of mayonnaise in. If you put in too much it doesn’t look pink. And I want a bagel, too.” With that, she disappeared into the house.

  Pamela gazed after her, feeling a tug was part pride, part protectiveness and part something she might have called mother-love if she believed herself capable of maternal sentiments. Lizard was exasperating—but in a perverse way, that was one of her most appealing traits. She was uncouth and sassy and, in a word, icky—and Pamela loved her for it.

  The Prescotts would never view Lizard’s bad behavior as lovable. Neither, Pamela feared, would the court. Ms. Whitley going to declare Lizard a maniac and tear her from Joe.

  Pamela couldn’t let that happen. She would have to work on Lizard some more—make sure she scrubbed behind her ears in the bath, make sure she dressed neatly, make sure she didn’t call her Barbie doll “Snoot” or Joyce Prescott “icky” in front of hostile witnesses. Pamela had married Joe for better or worse—something along that line, anyway—and she was now entering the “for worse” stretch with him.

  She was simply going to have to make things work out.

  ***

  “I’M COMING TO THE SHIPWRECK with you,” she said.

  “You? At the Shipwreck?”

  Four days had passed since the Prescotts had come to town. Four days of sunny skies and apprehension, of meetings with Mary DiNardi and high tension in the house, of Joe spending as much time at the Shipwreck as he had when he’d been avoiding Pamela.

  He wasn’t avoiding her now. Over breakfast he reviewed with Pamela everything his lawyer had told him. He seemed to value Pamela’s opinions. He definitely valued her ability to get Lizard to dress in pretty matching shorts and tops, and to either braid all her hair or none of it, instead of just plaiting the locks at her ears.

  Yet he sought refuge at the Shipwreck every night. Pamela doubted he was drinking there. In fact, the last time she’d seen him partake of liquor—a single bottle of beer—was the night he’d wound up making love to her.

  She willfully closed her mind to the image. She didn’t want to think about it, or dream about it, or find herself, at odd moments, wishing for a recurrence. She didn’t want to love him.

  The Prescotts had taken Lizard to their resort for dinner tonight. Joe had protested, claiming that they were getting too much easy access to Lizard, but his lawyer had insisted that it was important for Lizard to establish some ties with the Prescotts, just in case she wound up in their custody. Hearing his own advocate mention such a possibility had sent Joe into a funk.

  Pamela had no illusions that she could cheer him up by accompanying him to the bar. But she didn’t want to sit home alone, worrying about him. She would accompany him to the Shipwreck, spend a couple of hours catching up with Kitty and nursing a glass of wine, and then go home in time to greet Lizard when the Prescotts dropped her off.

  “It’s a public facility,” she pointed out reasonably. “You can’t tell me not to come.”

  Joe mulled over her assertion. “I wasn’t going to tell you not to come. I just don’t know what you’ll do there.”

  “Listen to the juke box,” Pamela suggested. “Keep you company.”

  “I’ll be working.”

  “Fine.”

  Evidently he could find nothing more to object to. “Okay. But you’ve got to be home before the Prescotts get back with Lizard. If they come home to an empty house—”

  “They said they’d be bringing her home at nine. I’ll be home before then.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged, then lifted the keys to his car and handed her the keys to hers.

  The bar was already bustling with happy drinkers by the time she and Joe arrived, a little after five. Within minutes, she lost track of the number of people who said hello to her—people she scarcely recognized. They all claimed to be friends of Joe’s, or regulars, or former boyfriends of Kitty who’d attended Joe’s wedding.

  The noise level rose as the one hour shifted into the next. The juke box blasted an eclectic mix of songs: Tim McGraw, the Pointer Sisters, Tony Bennett, Sting—and Ben E. King warbling Stand By Me.

  Seated at a table at the rear of the room, Pamela sought Joe with her gaze as that song, their song, filtered through the thick, smoky air. Joe was apparently searching for her, too, because when their eyes met she felt a jolt, as visceral as if he’d crossed the room and kissed her. She wanted to promise she would stand by him forever. But that was a promise he had no use for. All he’d ever asked of her was that she stand by him during the custody fight.

  Yet his gaze remained on her for the duration of the song. Brick seemed to sense his boss’s distraction, because he picked up the slack and filled all the orders until the last plaintive notes faded away. Only then did Joe break from her, severing the unspoken, unreadable communication.

  She approached the bar, but Joe was suddenly very busy organizing his whisky bottles. “Whenever that song gets played, he thinks of you,” Brick confided, stringing together more words than Pamela had ever heard from him.

  “Maybe he’s just remembering what a good time we had at the wedding.”

  Brick grunted and shook his head.

  Joe finished inventorying his whisky. He shot a quick glance at the tacky steering-wheel clock hanging on the wall, then sent Pamela a fleeting smile. “You’d better head off. It’s quarter to nine.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Kiss Lizzie good-night for me.”

  “I will, Joe.” Pamela was tempted to kiss him good-night, too. She saw the pensive glimmer in his eyes, and for a selfish instant wished his emotions were for her. But they were for Lizard, she knew. Lizard was the one who mattered to him.

  Forcing a smile, she slid the strap of her purse over her shoulder and sauntered out of the bar. The streets were clogged with traffic, but Pamela made it to Joe’s block by five minutes to nine—enough time to get inside, turn on some lights and wait for Lizard.

  Not quite, she realized as she spotted the Infiniti parked in front of Joe’s house. She accelerated down the street and steered up onto the driveway. By the time she’d turned off the engine and climbed out of the car, Joyce and Lawton Prescott had emerged from the Infiniti. Lawton’s hand was clamped firmly around Lizard’s wrist; he was practically dragging her toward Pamela. Something pink was spilled across the front of Lizard’s sun dress.

  “Hi,” Pamela said in a falsely bright tone. “I’m sorry you had to wait. You got here a little early.”

  “We got here at eight fifteen,” Joyce snarled. “We’ve been waiting all this time. Another minute, and we would have left her at the social worker’s house. We’ve had just about all we can take!” Lawton released Lizard with a slight shove, and Li
zard flew into Pamela’s arms.

  Ignoring the adults, Pamela inspected Lizard for signs of damage. Besides the pink splotch on the bodice of her dress, her hair was matted and her neck wore rings of dirt. She looked remarkably dry-eyed, though, feisty and defiant.

  “What happened?” Pamela asked her.

  “Nothin’.”

  “That child is a beast,” Lawton declared tautly. “She ought to be sent to reform school.”

  “Lizard,” Pamela scolded. “What did you do?” And whatever it was, will it persuade the court that Joe’s an unfit parent?

  “It was her fault,” Lizard said, pointing a dirty finger at Joyce. “She asked me what I thought of her dress.”

  “This is a Versace,” Joyce erupted. “It was bad enough that she told me it was gross, but then she deliberately spilled water all over it. This is silk. Water stains won’t come out.”

  “Perhaps a dry-cleaner—”

  “She ruined this dress for no good reason. Then she ran around the restaurant, throwing a tantrum. She humiliated us in front of the other patrons.”

  “It was an icky restaurant,” Lizard argued. “They didn’t even have pisketti.”

  “Spaghetti,” Pamela corrected her before addressing the Prescotts. “She’s rather young to be going to fancy restaurants.”

  “We don’t eat at fast-food joints,” Joyce sniffed. “Perhaps your idea of dining out is shouting your order into a microphone and driving up to the pick-up window, but we consider dining an important social experience—and we expect a well-bred child to behave properly in a restaurant. Elizabeth was horrible. She deliberately tripped a waiter.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate,” Pamela asserted. “Was it, Lizard?”

  “Unh-unh.” The little girl shook her head. “I did it on purpose.”

  “The waiter was carrying a chocolate soufflé,” Lawton said.

  “Needless to say, it collapsed because of her,” Joyce added. “She’s a spiteful, hateful child. She has no sense of decorum. She reduced me to tears.”

  “Lizard.” Pamela tried hard to look indignant, but a rebellious smile stole across her lips.

  “She is a heathen beast,” Joyce continued. “I don’t see how we can possibly fit her into our lives, if this is the way she chooses to behave.”

  “She’s vulgar,” Lawton added.

  “Ordering a strawberry milk shake at a three-star restaurant. And when the chef d’hôte came out to see what the ruckus was about, she called him a butt-face. I thought I was going to die!” Joyce whined.

  “She isn’t fit for society,” Lawton concluded. “She’s beyond redemption. There’s nothing we can do for her.”

  “Excuse me...” Pamela was afraid of jumping to the wrong conclusion and then having her hopes dashed. “Are you saying you aren’t going to ask for custody of Lizard?”

  “Joseph can have her. She’s obviously a Brenner.”

  “Tainted genes,” Lawton concurred.

  “A hideous child.”

  “She’s a wonderful child!” Pamela argued, hugging Lizard and not caring that some of the pink stuff—strawberry milk shake, no doubt—was rubbing onto her T-shirt. “And his name is Jonas, not Joseph.”

  “And my name is Lizard, not Betsy,” Lizard shouted.

  “Lizard suits you well, little girl,” Lawton retorted. “You and your aunt and uncle deserve each other. We’ll be leaving for Hillsborough in the morning.”

  Before Pamela could say another word, the Prescotts, dressed in their overpriced, water-stained apparel, strode regally back to their expensive rental car, climbed in and drove off into the hot, starlit night.

  Too stunned to move, Pamela laughed. So did Lizard. Pamela closed her arms snugly around Lizard, and Lizard hugged her just as tightly.

  “We ought to telephone your Uncle Joe,” Pamela whispered, aware that her cheeks were damp with tears.

  “Yeah. And then can I draw a tattoo on Snoot’s boob?”

  “You can draw all the tattoos you want on Snoot,” Pamela promised, swinging Lizard high into her arms and carrying her inside the house.

  Chapter Fifteen

  LIZARD RULED THE SHIPWRECK from her perch on the bar. In one hand she held a non-alcoholic Pink Lady; in the other she held her Barbie doll, its body wrapped in rubber bands and its hair woven into a lopsided braid with a feather glued to the tip. “It was great,” she regaled anyone who wandered close enough to listen to her. “I tripped a waiter and he was carrying this chocolate stuff and it went flying everywhere, and it looked like poop.”

  Pamela had heard her tell the story three times already that evening, so she wandered away from the bar to greet Mona Whitley, who was seated primly by herself at a table near the door. “I’m so glad you decided to stop by,” Pamela said, settling into a chair across from Ms. Whitley.

  Dressed in a decorous suit of gray linen, Ms. Whitley nursed her bourbon and eyed Lizard with less than complete approval. “It’s past Elizabeth’s bedtime,” she observed.

  Lizard frequently stayed up later than nine o’clock, but even though the custody battle was over, Pamela decided the social worker didn’t have to know that. “This party is in her honor, so it would be a shame if she couldn’t be here. Besides, she can always sleep late tomorrow.”

  Ms. Whitley appeared skeptical. “I’m still not convinced that the Prescotts wouldn’t have provided her with a more stable environment.”

  “Stability isn’t everything,” Pamela argued gently, surprising herself. Her life had been perfectly stable until a couple of months ago, when her car had journeyed the last few miles of Route One, depositing her on Key West. She used to treasure the stability of her existence. It indicated that she was in control of things.

  Maybe someday she would want stability and control back in her life. But not tonight. Tonight belonged to Joe and Lizard.

  “And my Aunt Joyce,” Lizard continued, her strident voice slicing through the cacophony of conversation and music, “she was so...” Lizard searched the room until she found Pamela. “What’s that word you taught me, Pam?”

  “Negativity,” Pamela supplied. She and Lizard had thoroughly analyzed Aunt Joyce over the last twenty-four hours. Although Lizard had never known the Prescotts’ intentions regarding her custody, and although Pamela had exerted herself not to badmouth Lizard’s relatives, the child had been bubbling over with questions about why the Prescotts had acted as they had, buying her presents and treating her so nicely and then abruptly departing.

  “Aunt Joyce is grumpy,” Lizard had remarked. “She always complains about stuff, like the toy store shoulda had the dolls at the front, not at the back. She’s just always finding something wrong with stuff.”

  “That’s called negativity,” Pamela had explained.

  “Yeah, that’s the word,” Lizard said now, beaming at her audience. “Nativity. My Aunt Joyce is very nativity.”

  “I really do think nine o’clock is too late for a five-year-old,” Ms. Whitley persisted, although the words seemed to emerge from a great distance, through a dense fog. Pamela wondered how many bourbons the social worker had consumed.

  “We’ll be getting her home soon,” Pamela promised, then rose and sauntered across the room, grinning and nodding as Joe’s numerous friends shouted greetings and good wishes at her. A month ago they’d been toasting her wedding to him. Today they were toasting something much more significant.

  Standing behind the bar, his earring glittering and his chin scruffy because he’d skipped shaving that day, Joe wore a quiet smile. He looked as if he couldn’t quite believe his good fortune. Every now and then he glanced at his niece, who swung her legs, kicking the vertical panels of the bar, and who danced her Barbie doll among the glasses and bowls of pretzels until the doll’s molded high-heel feet landed smack in the middle of a plate of sliced lemons, squirting citrus wedges and juice in all directions.

  Joe didn’t scold. He was obviously too happy to be upset about a mess that was me
ager by Lizard’s usual standards.

  Noticing Pamela’s approach, he signaled Brick to cover for him and strolled to the end of the bar. With a flick of his head, he motioned for Pamela to join him at the back door.

  She edged past the crowd of revelers lining the bar until she reached Joe’s side. He looked formidably handsome—more handsome than when he’d made love to her, and his blue eyes had glowed with passion and yearning and satisfaction. They glowed tonight, but not with lust, not for Pamela.

  She could accept that. The fact was, Joe and Lizard were a team, a family, the rationale behind just about every step he had taken over the past few months—the past few years. Pamela had never been more than a means to an end, a peripheral part of the story.

  Touching her elbow lightly, he ushered Pamela down the hallway to the back door and out into the small lot at the rear of the building. Pamela recalled the first time he’d brought her there—to propose marriage. The spotlight above the door still flooded the lot with a silver-white glare, highlighting the coppery streaks the sun had painted into Joe’s tawny hair and casting his deep-set eyes in shadow.

  They stood in the hot, sea-scented evening, enjoying the fresh breezes. A horde of souped-up motorcycles rumbled down the street, briefly roiling the air. Joe waited for the noisy caravan to pass before addressing Pamela. His smile became sheepish, yet there was an edge to it, something she couldn’t identify. “It’s a good party, isn’t it,” he said.

  “It’s a wonderful party. How did you organize it so quickly?” She knew Joe had spent most of the day at Mary DiNardi’s office, finalizing the paperwork that would enable him to adopt Lizard formally. Pamela herself hadn’t even known there would be a party until Joe had called her at five that afternoon and told her to bring Lizard down to the Shipwreck for the festivities.

  “Kitty threw it together. She was almost as excited by the news as I was.” He shook his head, disbelief rising to the surface again. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it.”

  “What’s amazing? Kitty being excited?”