A Good Family

by A. H. Kim

  “Meatloaf knew she was just one shot away from getting sent away,” Deb says. For Mary, away meant a high-security prison with locked cells, abusive guards and homicidal bunkies.

  “Turns out, whenever there was a search, Meatloaf shoved her stockpile of pills into an old rubber glove and stuck it up her cooch,” Deb says. “The broken plunger handle was what she used to get it way up there.”

  I see Juanita’s eyes widen in horror.

  “But the week she died, she was on the rag,” Deb says. “When the COs started their search, she panicked and shoved the package up her ass. She was waiting until the coast was clear to pull the glove out, but before she could...”

  “The glove broke,” I say.

  “She had over a hundred grams of drugs in her system when she died,” Deb says.

  The gym is almost full when the three of us show up for spinning class. Juanita and I take our usual spots in the front row, and Deb takes her usual spot directly behind me.

  “Stop your yapping and get your skinny ass on the bike, Lindstrom,” the instructor says. She gives the stink eye to my shorty shorts.

  “Chica, you’re just asking for trouble,” Juanita warns, glancing back at Deb.

  I hike up my shorts a little higher.

  “C’mon,” I say with a grin, “girl’s gotta have a little fun.”

  * * *

  The first thing I noticed about Karen was her ass. It’s like that scene in 9½ Weeks when Mickey Rourke describes the first time he saw Kim Basinger. Karen had this beautiful, upside-down heart of an ass. And I wanted it.

  “Follow me,” Karen says. She leads me into the darkened room. “Take off your clothes and slip under the covers. I’ll be right back.”

  I quickly slip off my dress and slide between the silky smooth sheets. It feels good against my bare skin. I can’t wait for Karen to return. I’ve heard she’s incredible.

  Karen opens the door. “Ready?” she whispers, her voice soft and husky.

  “Yes,” I murmur.

  Karen closes the door and walks over to me. She lays her warm hands on my body and lets out a deep exhale, and then she slowly, gently pulls down the sheet. I feel goose bumps on my naked skin. The anticipation is intoxicating.

  “How hard do you like it?” she asks.

  I open my eyes and, in the dim light of the room, watch as she dips her fingers into the jar of thick, fragrant lubricant.

  “Hard,” I say, “the harder the better.”

  “I thought so, but I always like to ask. I never want to presume.”

  For sixty solid minutes, Karen goes harder than I’ve ever gone before. Hard to that delicious point where pleasure crosses into pain. By the end, I’m in nirvana—a blissed-out puddle of gratification.

  Afterward, we’re sitting on the sun-drenched porch, me in a terry-lined silk robe, Karen in her skintight yoga pants. We’re sipping some mildly hallucinogenic herbal tea when I ask, “How in the world did you get that fucking amazing ass?”

  Karen smiles and says, “I was a dancer.”

  “A dancer and a mind-blowing masseuse?”

  “Watch out!” someone shouts, and a Frisbee lands just inches from my feet.

  “Sorry, Beth!” Martin says, running onto the porch.

  Martin looks better than he has in a very long time. Divorce has been good for him. He was so depressed when his wife left him that he stopped eating altogether; now he’s almost down to his high school weight.

  “And sorry, whoever you are,” he says, looking over at Karen.

  Smooth, Martin. Very smooth.

  “Martin, this is Karen, the amazing masseuse I told you so much about,” I say by way of introduction, even though I’ve never mentioned her to him. “And, Karen, this is my older brother, Martin, the brilliant, soon-to-be-billionaire businessman and newly available bachelor.”

  “Nice to meet you, Martin,” Karen says, eyeing him up and down.

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” Martin responds, doing the same.

  Not quite.

  For the next few years, I made sure that Karen was fully employed servicing God Hälsa’s executives and most valued clients in the comfort and privacy of their own homes, offices or hotel suites. I told Karen to triple her normal hourly rate—God Hälsa officers get a generous perquisite for personal health and fitness expenses, and people put more value on things that are expensive.

  Karen was so grateful for the business that she gave me unlimited massages and ballet barre workouts for free. The massages tapered off when Martin and Karen got married, but the benefits of the workouts endure. Need proof?

  You should see my amazing upside-down heart of an ass.

  Karen and I aren’t exactly best friends, but I have to give her credit for another amazing achievement: my second brilliant Metamin-G marketing idea. It came to me on a Thanksgiving weekend when we were having a “girls’ night out” at the Applebee’s down by the Safeway shopping center.

  Hey, don’t judge: their spinach and artichoke dip isn’t half-bad.

  That year, Eva and Alex agree to host Thanksgiving at their place in suburban Virginia. It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving, and Martin, Alex and Sam stay home to watch the kids while the women go out to blow off some steam.

  Applebee’s is doing gangbusters business. Eva, Karen and I have just ordered our fourth round of cranberry cosmos when Karen starts complaining about her son Max’s abysmal high school grades.

  “All he wants to do is play Madden on his damn Xbox or watch Mexican wrestling videos on YouTube. It makes me wonder if something’s wrong with him. Maybe we should get him tested.”

  Looking across the table at Karen, I notice there’s something different about her. She’s had some work done. Soon, I won’t be able to tell Eva and Karen apart, with their Botox-smooth foreheads and collagen-plumped lips. They’ve even taken to dressing alike, in head-to-handbag Tory Burch. Karen, the struggling single mom and yogi, has transformed into a manicured MILF. Money will do that to you, I guess.

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better,” Eva says, “Stevie is just as bad. Stevie was such a good student in elementary school, but now that she’s in middle school, she’s always distracted. It seems like she’s constantly texting her friends or checking her Instagram feed to see how many ‘OMG, you’re so pretty’ comments she gets.”

  “Tell me about it,” Karen sighs. “My girls are already obsessed with social media, and they’re not even teenagers. It’s getting out of control. Their teachers said I shouldn’t have let them get their own phones so soon, but how else can I keep track of them?”

  “You know what they say,” Eva replies, “you pay your dues with boys when they’re young, but girls cause more headaches when they’re older.”

  The two women continue exchanging tales of teenager trouble—lost homework, sky-high data charges, cracked brand-new iPhones—as the overworked waitress brings another round of cloyingly sweet drinks. While Karen and Eva chatter away, I start chewing on a fried calamari ring and the synapses of my brain go into overdrive.

  Distracted. Obsessed. Out of control.

  OMG.

  Thank God for fucked-up kids and their even more fucked-up parents.

  hannah

  twenty-four

  Over the past several months, I’ve developed a new weekend routine: I take the 6:05 train on Friday after work to stay with Sam and the girls in Princeton, and return home to Hoboken on the second-to-last train Sunday night. This way, I can spend lots of quality time with Claire and Ally and still save up my vacation days for holidays or trips to visit Beth.

  Today will be different, though. It’s Sam’s birthday, and I’m working just a half day in the morning and catching the 12:15 local to Princeton so we can all celebrate his special day together.

  “Happy birthday, baby brother,” I sing into
the phone. It’s barely past dawn, but I know Sam works extra early on Fridays during the spring and summer to accommodate his clients.

  “Thanks, Hannah,” Sam responds. He sounds gloomy.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Yeah, some idiot just backed his truck into my car in the club’s parking lot. The tow truck’s here right now,” Sam says. The clatter of metal on metal can be heard in the background.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I say. Sam loves his Z4 like it’s his child. “What a bummer. And on your birthday, too. Did you get the other guy’s insurance?”

  “Yeah. Hey, I know it’s in the opposite direction, but do you think you could swing by the club and pick me up before dinner?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a whole two miles out of my way,” I say, teasing. “But since it’s your birthday, I guess I’ll do you a favor.”

  “Thanks, Hannah.”

  Sam still sounds blue, which is uncharacteristic of my eternally sunny brother. I wonder if something’s worrying him—something other than a wrecked car and a wife in prison.

  “Buck up, buckaroo,” I say. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Maria and Jorge are waiting to pick me up from the Princeton Junction station. I always tell them they don’t need to do it—after all, there are plenty of cabs at the station—but Maria and Jorge insist on picking me up anyway.

  “You are family,” they say, “and family don’t take cabs.”

  In my less charitable moments, I think the two of them probably don’t have anything better to do. I can’t count the number of times I’ve told Sam that he doesn’t need a full-time cook and driver, but he refuses to let them go.

  As we pull up the long driveway, my spirits lift. It used to make me uncomfortable to stay at Sam and Beth’s Princeton house, all that formal furniture and hard marble surfaces, but I’ve grown used to it. The house feels almost like home to me now.

  Claire and Ally are already back from school when I enter the front doors. Grace, their part-time nanny, is also there. They’re all sitting on the couch, each staring at her own personal screen. Once I enter the room, though, Claire and Ally turn their enthusiastic attention to me. It feels like a gift.

  The girls and I spend the next hour making Sam’s special birthday cake. Ever since he was little, Sam’s birthday cake of choice has been chocolate cake from a box mix filled with strawberry jam and iced with store-bought chocolate frosting. Beth always buys him something from a fancy bakery—marzipan-covered Princess cake, espresso-soaked tiramisu or decadent New York–style cheesecake—but Sam’s face lights up whenever I bring him his tried-and-true favorite.

  “Have you been practicing your golf?” I ask Claire.

  I gave the girls a toy golf set for Christmas, and Claire and I got creative over Presidents’ weekend and set up a three-hole mini-golf course in Sam’s basement rec room.

  “Yes!” Claire shouts. She shakes the multicolored sprinkles on top of the cake. I don’t usually put sprinkles on Sam’s cake, but Claire thought they would make it more festive.

  “I’ve been practicing every day after school, and I’m getting really good,” Claire says. Claire doesn’t seem to lack confidence in any aspect of her life. I pray that never changes.

  “You think you can beat Daddy?” I ask.

  “I can never beat Daddy!” Claire says. “Because he cheats! Daddy is a big fat cheater. Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater.” Claire laughs as she continues to shake the sprinkles on the cake. Maybe she’s had a little too much sugar today. I take the shaker away from her.

  “I think that’s enough, Claire.”

  It’s almost five o’clock when I pull Sam’s SUV up to the Princeton Country Club. This being early summer, the sun is still shining brightly. The valet parking guy rushes toward our car and then backs away after recognizing me and the girls. He smiles and waves. I wave back. I feel like Norm entering Cheers. It’s nice to go where everybody knows your face, if not your name.

  Claire and Ally are in the back seat, watching a movie on Claire’s iPad and sharing one set of earbuds between them. I can’t help but think Claire will be a wonderful mother someday. She’s got a generous soul.

  Sam should be off duty soon, and then the birthday celebration can begin. We’re going to a hip new Putt-Putt place that opened near the university. They’ve already gotten buzz for their bourbon-glazed chicken wings and garlic curly fries with homemade ranch dip. I double-checked their website to make sure you don’t have to be over twenty-one to enter. Claire is dying to test her mini-golf skills on an actual Putt-Putt course, and I don’t want her to be disappointed.

  Knowing Sam’s tendency toward tardiness, I debate whether to turn off the car or let it idle, when I see Sam’s silhouette walking toward the parking lot. He’s intercepted by a feminine figure who emerges from the clubhouse. I can’t make out her face, but she is tall and curvaceous and has what Sam would crassly call a “nice rack.”

  The clock on the dashboard reads 5:05. I glance at the back seat to make sure the girls are still occupied and then pull out my phone to check work emails. My in-box is empty. It seems to be a quiet Friday in the office.

  I click onto Facebook and see that over two hundred friends have wished Sam happy birthday. Several people have posted unflattering shots of Sam from days gone by: as a college freshman on spring break, slumped in a barstool with eyes half-closed between two very flamboyant drag queens; at a circa-2001 Princeton Country Club New Year’s Eve party, hanging out with a group of men holding their golf clubs between their legs like penis proxies; at the poolside of some glitzy resort, lying passed out facedown on a chaise while Eva’s husband, Alex, pretends to enter him sexually from behind.

  It must be a generational thing to post unflattering photographs, or perhaps it’s just a guy thing. I realize that, with the exception of Alex and a couple others, I don’t recognize most of Sam’s Facebook friends or the people in the posted photos. How could it be that huge swaths of Sam’s life are unknown to me?

  I scroll through the other photos on Sam’s Facebook page, the ones he posted himself. There’s Sam smiling broadly next to Jack Nicklaus, his all-time hero, at a fund-raising golf event in Detroit. Sam and the girls making sandcastles on the pale sand beach in Maui, with a blurry image of Lise in a white bikini in the background. Sam and Beth on the red carpet at a charity gala in New York City, Sam looking dapper in his tuxedo and Beth flashing her gleaming smile and lissome legs. My eyes well up thinking about the life he once had, the life that’s now been ruined.

  As I wipe the tears away, my hands reach subconsciously for my earrings, the diamond studs that Sam gave me for my fortieth birthday. I give the earrings a twirl and try to remember: What did I give Sam for his fortieth birthday? It takes me a while to remember the set of cuff links made from an old Buffalo Bills football. I’ve never seen him wear them. It’s hard to think of gifts to get for people who spare no expense for themselves.

  Beth recently wrote me about the birthday gift she arranged for her bunkie. Alderson’s shower temperatures are erratic, and Beth told me Juanita complains endlessly about how much she misses a scalding hot shower. It’s one of the things that Beth and Juanita first bonded over. For Juanita’s birthday, Beth arranged for a “twenty-one-gun salute”—all the women in their living unit flushed the toilets simultaneously while Juanita was taking her morning shower.

  “BEST. BIRTHDAY GIFT. EVER!” Beth bragged. It puts things in perspective.

  The dashboard clock reads 5:19, and the Putt-Putt place expects us at 5:30. I hate to be late, but I also hate to be rude. I hesitate before giving the horn a playful honk. Sam and the woman look up. The sun shifts ever so slightly, and I can barely make out the woman’s face. The woman hands Sam a large shopping bag. They kiss each other on the cheeks, French-style, and then Sam walks to the car while the woman reenters the clubhouse.

  “Who
was that?” I ask. I get out of the car and walk over to the passenger side.

  “No one you know,” Sam responds. He puts the shopping bag in the trunk before getting in the car and adjusting the seat and mirrors.

  “I think I recognized her,” I say.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Sam grunts. He shifts the SUV out of what he calls “old lady mode” and speeds down the street. Despite Sam’s denials, I’m absolutely sure I’ve seen the woman before. I have a good eye for faces, and even if I didn’t, most people would remember her. She’s drop-dead gorgeous.

  “I remember meeting her at one of your Hamptons parties,” I say. “I think she was talking with Karen.”

  Sam doesn’t say anything.

  “Charlotte,” I say with a snap of my fingers. “Her name’s Charlotte, right?”

  “What’s in the bag, Daddy?” Claire asks from the back seat. “Did the pretty lady give you a birthday present?”

  Sam continues in silence.

  “Sam, Claire asked you a question,” I say quietly. Claire is an observant child. She notices when she’s being ignored.

  “What’s with the cross-examination?” Sam barks. “Can’t I just enjoy some peace and quiet on my birthday without being subjected to a game of twenty questions?”

  My pulse quickens at Sam’s outburst. I crane my head backward and see Claire’s eyes filling with tears. She tries hard to hold it in but starts bawling, and Ally joins in solidarity.

  “Sam, what’s wrong?” I ask. I try to sound sympathetic, but a little anger comes through.

  “Fuck this!” Sam yells. He makes a sharp right turn and pulls the car to a screeching stop on the side of the road. He gets out, slams the door and stomps away. I’m tempted to chase after Sam but can’t leave the girls unattended in the car. Claire and Ally are howling now, their faces red and puffy.