What the Family Needed

by Steven Amsterdam

  Giordana started typing. “I’ll tell him about the party. Did you ever bring him to The Lion and the Witch?”

  “He hasn’t come through this way in a while.”

  “You have to take him there. Opening the doors to the wardrobe, pushing the coats back, and that staircase down. The brilliance of it. That’s the universe he wants to see.” She looked up meaningfully to force eye contact. “He would adore it.” Sasha didn’t care enough about his brother. That was the family’s reading.

  Before Alek left for good, that last time, Sasha had received a surprise mid-afternoon visitation. He was with a client when Alek appeared at the cubicle, standing in the doorway and singing, “What the world needs now, is lunch sweet lunch.” The client was bewitched, which made it forgivable. If the client hadn’t been, the scene would have had less appeal.

  The occasion was a request for money, to get him to Hong Kong. He was going to vanish again.

  “Does Ruth know?”

  “No. She’d try to stop me.”

  “Like she could.”

  “True. But you won’t.”

  Sasha felt accused. “So you’re pulling a geographical?”

  “If you’re asking if I think everything will be better where I’m going, yes. I’m sure of it. All I need is my pack and my ticket. And that’s where you enter the picture.”

  Sasha gave him the money, partly because he trusted that Alek would be able to sustain himself, at least for a while. He’d squirrel out a decent existence for ten minutes or so, get himself laid a bit, charm a few strangers. Then he’d wander off and eventually come scurrying back. Sasha also knew their parents would benefit from Alek’s absence. A bit of time would be a healthy thing for all concerned.

  Giordana typed with vigor. “I’m going to suggest that he try to find his way home, if he can. How are your parents with him these days?”

  “Calm and relaxed, as long as he’s in another country. I don’t think he’ll come. He’d be scared they’d net him,” Sasha said.

  “Net him?”

  “Stick him in the bin. Let a shrink take over. One of my father’s clunkier threats.”

  Giordana shuddered. “Don’t let my mother hear that. She has another year till she’s one herself, God help us all. And she’s still rabid on the subject of Alek. She has a thousand theories about his brain, not that anyone’s asking. At any rate, he doesn’t seem to need a bin in Java.”

  “He never did. He’s merely a touch too whimsical. He’ll survive,” Sasha said.

  She tilted the computer screen toward her so she could give Sasha a professorial glare.

  “Do you really think that’s enough for a person? Is that all you’re attempting to achieve every day, survival? We need more than that—we all need friends, intimacy.”

  “Suddenly we all need intimacy.” He smirked. Giordana said nothing.

  Alek only made contact when he wanted something. After all these years and all her smarts, Giordana hadn’t worked that out. Alek’s real reason was somewhere in that e-mail. Sasha didn’t feel like discussing it further.

  Giordana worked through her disapproval of Sasha’s brothering by writing back to Alek, big-time. In exchange for his one-paragraph greeting, she sent back five screens of news, about her thesis and the party, and telling him all about Jonah, as if he’d really care about any of it. Let the record show that at no time during her ongoing director’s-cut commentary about the composition of this masterpiece e-mail was there any talk of paying for his ticket home. All she was giving him was a letter. She wouldn’t hear from him for another six months.

  While she typed and rambled, Sasha called Connor for further confirmation of what seemed to have happened the night before. Connor’s report: “Honestly, Tim and I have been at each other a lot for minor infractions lately. He didn’t want to go last night. But right in the middle of it all, we had this mutual moment. It was what I’ve always imagined electroshock therapy must be like, except not as sedating. What it was was thrilling”—Connor’s voice hushed here, in reverence—“like sudden perspective. We remembered how we felt. You were right next to us. I have no idea why you should be part of the moment at all because you’re so coarse when you’re in party mode.”

  Never mind all the flattery and gratitude. Sasha felt heady with the fact that he was the one responsible.

  Giordana had stopped typing and stared dopily off into space.

  Sasha’s pride in what he’d apparently achieved flipped into fear that he didn’t know why it happened or how long it would last. What if it worked like Ecstasy, and a day of pleasure was paid for by three days of overwhelming, dark funk? He didn’t want to be responsible for heartbreak. If her newly found fondness was his responsibility, he felt duty-bound to let her know. The goal wasn’t to piss on her parade, per se. Tim and Connor could handle this love wave as well as any turbulent wake, but Giordana was delicate. He didn’t want her jumping blind into this situation that might go wrong. If she accepted that it was a hex of some sort, she could develop the appropriate wariness as protection. The only way to convince an academic, though, would be with empirical proof. Which meant he would have to do it again.

  They were heading for the café when Sasha phoned the office to say he wouldn’t be coming in at all. Giordana, who had never worked a normal job in her life, seemed to get a contact thrill from his call. If he could wow an academic with a slack workday, imagine what his next stunt would do.

  The usual assortment of freelancers were spread out with their computers and coffees, forcing Sasha and Giordana onto the threadbare loveseat next to the counter. Fortunately this provided the clearest view of the main stage of the place, the espresso machine.

  “This has been my new regular for the past month,” Sasha said. “The coffee is sublime.”

  Giordana doubted. “My coffeehouse in Hiroshima had women in lab coats. We’ll see.”

  As they sat down, Giordana examined the wallpaper. It was pink stripes of cats in dresses putting on prissy tea parties, alternating with brown stripes of dogs with mustaches drinking coffee at some Roman train station. “Is this all cryptically sexist or am I hypersensitive?”

  No response required.

  Sasha knew the people who worked here, their names at least, and he thought one or two of them would, if he orchestrated it well, accept a furtive touch. Especially if there were results. It would make the point to Giordana and spread a little happy at the same time.

  They ordered from Vanessa, a nose- and lip-ringed blonde in her twenties with a purple G-string that rode higher than her jeans. She had been a chemical engineer but was fed up with the culture and had taken a personal-style vacation so she could find “one goddamned guy on my wavelength.” Vanessa passed their order to Nick, working the coffee apparatus. He was a slight, angular dude with a buzz cut and concave chest who—when Sasha had initially come on to him—revealed (A) that he cared deeply, to the point of documentarian obsession, about single-source beans, and (B) that he was woefully straight. Together, Nick and Vanessa were visually pleasing. They were money sexy—those who would pay to watch sex would pay to watch Nick and Vanessa have it. Presumably the two of them had considered it before, but if he bestowed his special blessing, they could revisit the possibility. And Giordana would be there to witness.

  While Sasha waited to strike, Giordana pumped him for Jonah data. He gave his book report on The Wrong One and what he had gleaned from interviews. It actually provided enough personal info to serve as a romantic CV. Giordana grinned or blushed with each detail. The more she did, the more Sasha toned down his talk. He had never seen her this neurosis-free about anybody. The bottomless cheer coming from She Who Always Knew Better was beginning to skeeve.

  When Vanessa came back with Giordana’s double espresso and his latte, Sasha set up the play. He asked her, “So how much longer do you think you’ll stick around here?”

  Vanessa leaned in for a confidential reply. “Another month or so, max. The work doesn’t
worry me, but my mortgage does.”

  Sasha said, “And your manhunt?”

  “Nada,” she said, drawing a line with a finger across her neck. Vanessa addressed Giordana as she poked Sasha’s cheek. “Unfortunately all of the good ones are—” and she turned toward the kitchen without finishing the sentence.

  Sasha called his next target. “Hey Nick?”

  “Hey Sasha?”

  Sasha raised his latte in Nick’s direction.

  Nick whipped his kitchen towel in thanks.

  Sasha turned to Giordana. “Don’t you think Vanessa and Nick would make a sweet couple?”

  “Are they?”

  “No,” Sasha said. “Not yet.”

  Far from being the type to pay to watch, Giordana was not even likely to obtain jollies by speculating about the personal life of others. “So you actually have no idea if they’re suited,” she said.

  “But wouldn’t they look good together?” He didn’t truly know if he would be spreading love or disaster.

  Vanessa went into the kitchen, passing Nick. Neither regarded the other with the slightest of glances.

  Giordana exhaled, indicating the drying up of her interest. “Yes, it would be a veritable banquet for the eyes,” she said, gazing longingly out the window for intelligent conversation.

  “Right,” Sasha said. “Why not?”

  Vanessa emerged from the kitchen with an eggs Benedict and a salad. She delivered it and returned, stopping next to Nick to scrape off a tray of dishes.

  “Watch this,” Sasha told Giordana, and he walked over to the bar.

  He leaned across the polished countertop till he was in arm’s reach of his two intended, and beckoned them closer. The only reason they complied was because Sasha was an absurd tipper.

  He had never touched them before, but he gripped them each on the shoulder, with a possibly forgivable zeal. His thumbs brushed their necks. “You two do a fantastic job,” he said.

  As he reached the third syllable of “fantastic,” he closed his eyes to dial up a grand partnership of equals. The jolt came right on time and the bridge circuit released.

  Yes. They were sharing a sudden secret.

  Sasha moved away to let nature or whatever it was take charge. “Really, keep up the good work,” he said. He was, by now, irrelevant.

  Vanessa twisted her body toward Nick’s, maximizing visibility of her G-string, and told him, “I need to head back to the kitchen.”

  “That’s cool. I’m here. Whenever.” He thumped his hand on his chest twice.

  And before she pushed through the swinging door, she lunged out to give him a peck on the cheek. Vanessa looked startled as she disappeared into the kitchen. Nick went after her.

  They were besotted. And unlike the other couples, Sasha barely knew them. This was more than lucky matchmaking. He would hook up every damaged person he could find. The glum ones looking down, the stupidly hopeful ones watching the sky, all of them. The solitary freaks. They would each get what they wanted.

  Sasha returned to the table, hands out. “Did you feast on all of that?”

  “Yes, your hunch proved correct.”

  Sasha sat down. He was trying to be as rational as he could about something this ludicrous. “No. That wasn’t a hunch. I did it.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Didn’t you see their expressions when I touched them? How they changed? I’m a conduit. Look at you and Jonah last night.”

  Giordana’s smile froze into a line of patient impatience. “That’s giving yourself quite a lot of credit.”

  “How else can you explain the sudden coupling? I proposed it and then it happened.”

  “So, something supernatural, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes. Super plus natural.”

  “A man going around shooting arrows, and people falling in love at his whim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sounds like a fairly egocentric fantasy.”

  “What? You weren’t even going to talk to Jonah and now you’re reviewing his résumé like you’re head of HR. And he’s out there someplace thinking about you so much his chest aches.” That last idea temporarily won her favor. But then she put it all together and didn’t like what it suggested.

  She straightened up and away from him, as if she were about to address a cocky undergrad. “Life can offer glimpses of things that feel unique. You can find coincidences that make you think you’re special for a while. Take my advice and keep them to yourself.”

  They walked home with decidedly less chat.

  Despite the dressing-down, Giordana’s mood remained balmy and distracted. At a traffic light she bumped into a woman with a stroller. The stumble barely caused any shame, just a grinning apology.

  Giordana kept putting her hands through her hair. Another symptom.

  Sasha worried. As unknowingly as he had cast the spell, what if he could break it by making some other random gesture one day? Like once Giordana and Jonah were shacked up and knocked up. One morning, when Sasha tied his shoes the wrong way or gave the finger to a coworker, the two lovebirds would wake up on their opposite sides of the bed to find that this supremely rose-tinted view had been stripped away.

  Not that she would think to blame him for the abrupt disappearance of her bliss. Skepticism of the outside world was her shtick, mainly because she had such fabulous belief in herself. She would spend the rest of her days looking inside for the answer. Her brain and heart, as far as she ever knew, were sound.

  Belief in the function of one’s brain and one’s heart were basic tenets of life. The morning Alek first ran away, he woke Sasha so he could explain that fact in scattered, lengthy detail. He was tangential and sweaty—not in control of either organ, which went a long way toward proving his point.

  “I’m leaving. Not forever, but I need to get out of here. Long enough to get my faith back.”

  He was too amped up about it all, the way he’d been ever since he’d quit school, to be intelligible. Sasha knew not to question his intention.

  “I’m not telling you so you can tell them about it,” Alek said. “No one could stop me anyway. I’m telling you because you’re my brother.”

  Alek had no money and no social skills. Sasha guessed that the expedition would end with a police car in the driveway, bringing him home. Sasha swore secrecy and let him go. As Alek had said, no one was going to stop him. Even though they’d been living separate lives for most of high school, Sasha went to bed that night sad that he hadn’t been asked to go along.

  That next day at school, before their parents even knew he had left, Sasha felt sorry for his little brother. He pitied him for the brawl that was going to happen whenever he came back, and for being so sick in the head. Sasha remained true to his word, though. That night and the next few days, as his parents slipped way past panic, he never confessed prior knowledge. Even when he himself began to envision darker outcomes. What was he going to do? He didn’t know where Alek had been going anyway. Telling their parents would only have gotten Sasha into trouble.

  The journey ended up taking three months. That didn’t seem so long when you were grown up—time to pay off a mattress. But every day that Sasha kept his silence, he became more complicit in what he assumed was Alek’s death, guaranteeing that Sasha would be left to play the good boy for his parents forever more.

  The night Alek came back—using his key and calling out “Hey,” as if he had been to a movie—his parents screamed at him until they had rendered all of their fear and love. He said he’d spent a month at the beach and a month in the desert and a month in the woods, with a few other spots in between. He said he’d even stopped by the house a few times but didn’t feel like hanging out. Sasha had long given up trying to make sense of Alek’s dreamy talk, but this pissed him off. He could have calmed everyone down with a single appearance. What drove their father crazy was the money aspect. How did Alek get by for so long? He said he coped. That wasn’t sufficient. While their parents went of
f at him, Alek stayed mellow. At least he wasn’t acting like the Messiah. His voice was calmer, smarter, as if he’d found what he’d set out for. All this relaxed talk made their parents more anxious, as if he were in a fugue state and an even more unexplainable horror was right ahead.

  The next morning Sasha woke up again to Alek sitting on his bed, tapping his feet too fast. Sasha tried to play it light. “You on your way again?” He vowed he would try to talk him out of it or at least make him say where he was going.

  “No. I wanted to tell you: I know you’re into guys and it’s groovy with me.”

  Sasha was caught. At the word “groovy,” he felt as obvious and uncool as any teenager ever had.

  “Thanks” was all Sasha managed.

  “Every tree and every cloud says yes, be. We are not born onto this planet to judge each other, least of all our brothers. Got that?”

  “Yeah.” He understood. He would be quiet about Alek and Alek would be quiet about him.

  Six years later, Sasha was driving an overstuffed car with a futon tied to its roof, on his way to his first apartment. A pickup truck ran a red and sent him and the borrowed brown station wagon spinning back into the middle of an intersection at five p.m. on a workday. As if part of a perfectly staged dance number, all the drivers on the road made it to their brakes in time, so that Sasha’s car was left facing the wrong way, absolutely still amid a chorus circle of cars that had all stopped just short of collision. In that moment, as he pieced together the fact that he wasn’t hurt, that there was no damage done, that he was invincible, the thought came to him that Alek hadn’t sat on his bed that morning to blackmail him. Alek was trying to set him free.

  Sasha looked up as Giordana nearly walked into another intersection. Rather than put his arm out to stop her, he used the moment. He said, “Is that Jonah over there?”

  She looked around and then at Sasha. Her expression showed irritation, then amusement. She was unflapped. If a downpour had started, she would have burst into song and twirled an umbrella. What had Sasha done to her? Would she and Jonah disco onward like this, hand in hand, for fifty scintillating years of marriage?