She studied the amulets hanging from their necks, the earrings, the wife-beaters, the strange caps that kept them warm and signified how different they were. How did the younger kids get such extensive tattoos, snakes slithering up their necks, dragons fanning out across their chests? It was illegal in California, even with parental authority; they must be the prison tattoos you could make with pens and heated wire guitar strings. Don’t let my scrawny muscles confuse you—see how dangerous I am, with my piercings and jail tats.
The coffee was warm and milky, and woke her up. The mountain behind the town shone with woolly green expansiveness like Oz. A man walked up alongside her on the steps and said hello, and it took her a moment to recognize Fenn. He greeted her as if they were friends. God, he was sweet. The young blonde woman he was with had African-pierced ears, with plugs that stretched her lobes to the size of dimes, and as the three of them made small talk, Elizabeth tried not to stare.
Elizabeth tugged at her own earlobe. “Did that hurt?” she asked. The girl shook her head.
“Not at all.”
The earrings brought to mind watch batteries, or hearing aids.
“Are you interested?” Fenn asked, smiling. Elizabeth shook her head hurriedly, no no no. “ ’Cause we can plug you into our connection.”
Elizabeth looked shyly into her lap. “I don’t really understand the concept of most piercings, I’m afraid, or tattoos.”
When she raised her head to meet his eyes, he said, “It’s about finding openings.”
After Fenn left, she said to an imagined listener: I don’t believe in you, but please don’t let Rosie get those earrings; or any neck tattoos; or AIDS. Also, help her not fry her mind. Oh, one more tiny thing: Could you please help keep her alive, and not have a spinal cord injury, like Amelia the Goth girl? Thank you: that would be great.
By dinnertime, James had arranged on the table everything they’d found in Rosie’s room, like a holiday centerpiece, including a bottle Jody and Claude had asked her to hold for them, that she had maybe had a few hits from, and the Percocet she said she’d stolen from James. Why, why, her mother kept asking, and Rosie wanted to shout at her what Rae always said. That “Why?” was not a useful question.
Rosie did not answer, nor did a hint of her thinking show on her face. She shrugged. “Because it was there. Because it just made me feel like I had a secret. Like I have some parts of me you don’t own or get to have an opinion on. Because everyone puts so much pressure on me. And I’m a teenager, and sometimes I want to swipe things. Didn’t you ever steal?”
“Bikini underpants from little boutiques,” Elizabeth said.
“Is that all?” Rosie demanded.
“My parents let me drink in front of them, and looked away if I lifted a six-pack, so I had no excuse to steal from them. It sucked.”
“Mommy! Can’t you pay less attention to me? I’m a good kid. But I’m seventeen. Couldn’t you let things slide every so often?”
“We have, and now we’re worried that we’re letting too much slide,” said James. “We don’t know how much you’re using. Maybe you don’t even know that anymore. And a razor blade?”
“I just told you like the total truth!” There was the faintest and most terrible smile on James’s face, like when they played poker and he’d just been dealt an ace.
“Whatever,” he said, and looked over at Elizabeth. She looked back, puzzled. “So you did steal those Percocet from me in the spring?”
“Yeah,” Rosie said, and right before their very eyes, she seemed to give up. “I did.” She looked back and forth between them. “And I just need a chance to start over, and prove myself to you.”
“Okay. You’re grounded for four days,” he said. “Except for tennis and church.” He seemed to relax. “You can catch up on your AP English reading.” Rosie started to smirk, but something inside her shifted, and she sighed wearily instead.
“What ev,” she said. James looked about to react, but she threw her hands up.
“You win,” she said. “I hear you, I get it. I’m sorry. Okay?” James nodded.
Elizabeth poured the rum and pills into the sink, ran water, and tossed everything else into the garbage pail.
She said, “Great! Now can we eat? Start to get this behind us?”
James took a bite of food. “This is so good. What did you stir-fry this with? Cilantro?” She pointed her finger at him: Yes, exactly. And Rosie couldn’t believe her ears—they had already switched the topic to food and she was busted for only four days. Boy, this works for me, she thought to herself, and poked at her food winsomely.
“We’ve gotta stop with the whole meat thing,” Rosie announced.
“Why?” asked James.
“Because it’s immoral? And disgusting?”
“Rosie darling, we eat almost no meat these days.”
“So what do you call this, Mommy?” She held up an incriminating cube of meat, as if she’d fished a cat turd out of the stir-fry.
“Oh,” said James, smacking his forehead. “You mean lamb doesn’t count as a vegetable?”
We trapped her in a lie,” he whispered to Elizabeth behind the closed door of their bedroom. “Fong only prescribed a total of four Percocet. They’re synthetic opiates, the same as OxyContin. I took at least two, maybe three. So no way there were three of mine left. She had to have stolen them somewhere else.”
Elizabeth, sitting on the bed, let her head fall heavily to her chest. He went to sit by her and started to put his arm around her shoulders, but she pulled back, raised her hands, let them fall into her lap. “Can’t we drop it and start over?”
He looked at her for a long time, hard, surprised. “Our daughter got opiates from someone, Elizabeth. It’s for acute pain, Elizabeth, and highly addictive. It’s called Appalachian heroin.”
“I know! I’m not stupid. Maybe I don’t write for NPR—you know, most of us don’t. But I’m asking you to dial it back for now, while we figure out what to do—both of us, move back to Defcon Two, slightly increased force readiness.”
James closed his eyes, the Buddha with a migraine, nodded. “We need to start testing her, now.” Elizabeth sighed. “Do you agree?” After a minute, she nodded. He got up, and went into the bathroom to floss.
Lying in bed that night, he whispered that he loved her, and she whispered back that she loved him, too. There was a moment’s silence in the dark, and then he asked, “Is there any chance that we could ever get a dog?”
“What?” she asked too loudly, sitting up.
“I really want a dog, Elizabeth, I’ve wanted one for so long. I thought maybe when Rosie goes off to college, but why not now? It might actually be a good thing for our family.”
“We already have a perfectly good cat.” Rascal was kneading her stomach. “And when Rascal’s gone, I think I’ll be done with animals forever.”
“Why?”
“Because they are fur-covered heartbreak waiting to happen. Plus, if we got anything, it would be another cat—cats are so much smarter.”
James squawked in agreement. “They are. You throw a tennis ball to a cat, they say, ‘Fuck you, I’m not your maid.’ ”
“See, James, I like that in an animal. Dogs are obsequious.” When James laughed, she smiled and smoothed Rascal’s cheeks.
In the sweet, close quiet, he asked, “Can we get a drug-sniffing dog?” She managed a laugh, too.
Later, he wanted to make love, and she was glad to because her gratitude trumped the new feelings of mild revulsion she had begun to feel toward sex. Besides, it gave her a sex credit. She could look forward to a week off now.
Rae called first thing in the morning to see if Elizabeth wanted to drive to Sacramento with her for a rally in support of teachers and nurses, but Elizabeth begged off.
“I haven’t felt at all like myself since Rosie got busted—I totally need a meeting.”
“Please, Elizabeth? I’m exhausted, I have bad breath, and my vagina smells.”
&nbs
p; “That’s why I don’t want to go.”
James was in his office, moaning and groaning about his deadline when Elizabeth stepped in. “I’m going to drop Rosie off at the courts, and then I am running away from home. I need you to pick her up at one, when she’s done.”
“What do you mean, you’re running away from home? Where would you go?”
“I’m going to the noon meeting. Then I’m going to hang out at a bookstore, and maybe the home consignment center. I absolutely will go crazy if I have to stay here all morning.”
“Don’t buy anything—we honestly cannot afford anything now.”
“I may need to. I’m thinking of remodeling.”
“Don’t be crazy, Elizabeth. Of course we’re not going to remodel. Maybe if I get a contract for the new book.”
“You don’t work on anything anymore except your radio pieces.”
“So maybe I can put together a collection of those. Jesus, Elizabeth. I’m working my ass off. Today is really no good. Besides, can’t Rosie walk home?”
“No, she’s grounded.”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be giving her consequences that make life more of a pain in the neck for us.”
“James. Please. Pick her up.”
“I am so under the gun!”
“Don’t do this to me!” Elizabeth said, much too loudly, and instantly regretted that she’d resorted to one of Rosie’s battle cries. She stalked out of James’s office and went to shower. She needed a break today. James’s life definitely improved when he first got the NPR job—he brought in eight hundred dollars more a month, and people stopped him on the street to say how much they loved his stories of the world, of global warming and suffering, not to mention a teenage daughter, a bad back, a gut, bad teeth, and a difficult cat. But there was so much more pressure now, for both of them. When his producers weren’t quite as wild about one week’s radio essay, he moped, obsessed. Were he and all those other NPR essayists okay only when their producers jumped up and down? Were they sweating blood the rest of the time, waiting for the next hit, ignoring their families as they tried to get a piece just right, because airtime was Cinderella’s ball? Sometimes she felt as if he were having an affair, with someone so exquisite that she couldn’t fight back.
Rosie rolled out of bed at eleven. She had pimples all over her forehead, baby-sized but disgusting. Her shoulders sagged. She knew what her mother would say—you could hardly see them; she had her father’s beautiful skin. The sun and fresh air would help them heal! And blah blah blah.
She washed her face, patted it dry, and then carefully, like an expert at Macy’s, covered her skin with foundation. She stepped back to check herself in the mirror. She swirled a brush daubed in rose-colored blusher onto her cheeks, outlined her eyes in kohl. She applied a coat of mascara to her thick black lashes, and then another. She imagined Jody studying her, jealous and exposed: she had no real knack for makeup, but wore it anyway—powder, eyeliner, gloss. Alice, on the other hand, had taken an Intro to Cosmetology class at nights, and had taught Rosie everything she knew. “Cosmetology is a feel-good profession,” she had insisted more than once. Rosie and Jody had laughed hysterically.
She put on a clean thong, black lace, stolen from Nordstrom accidentally. She had tried it on in the dressing room, tried on jeans over it, paid for the jeans, and not remembered until she was at the cashier’s. James had found it stuck to his own laundry by static electricity. He had thought it was a broken shoelace at first.
She pulled on short cut-offs, her favorite pair, not too tight, with the strap of her thong showing in the back by at least an inch. She pulled a sports bra over her head, which flattened her and kept her tits from bouncing so much, but then she took it off and replaced it with a white lacy bra of her mother’s, the only one from Victoria’s Secret that her mother owned—mostly she got her bras at Macy’s, along with the huge underpants. They wore the same size everything, except jeans. She found a clean, cute, tight T-shirt, and her shoes, which were totally worn out. It so sucked living in this family, no one ever had any extra money. If she asked her mom to take her shopping for tennis shoes, she would sigh, like they were going to end up on government cheese.
Elizabeth looked at her clothing strangely but didn’t say anything except, “Do you have your racket? James will pick you up at one. Does that give you enough time?” Rosie had managed an SOS call to Jody while her mother was in James’s study, to meet her at the courts early. Jody would try to get hold of Alice, who was shopping for school clothes with her mother. Both of them had money; also dads, although Alice rarely saw hers. Rosie had been a little girl with a dead dad, and there was no getting around that or over that. Even a drunk dad, even an asshole, was better than a dead dad, which shouldn’t reflect on you but did, and left a cannon hole in your heart.
The meeting hit the spot. Nothing was more important than Elizabeth’s staying sober. Everything good that could happen for Rosie depended on Elizabeth’s not drinking. Leo, the speaker, had done some time at Napa State Hospital after having taken too many trips on LSD. He’d been released too early the last time, and spent most of his second day studying a large fish in an aquarium at a pet store, convinced that it was trying to speak to him. The fish had opened and closed its lips, mouthing, “Leo is God.” When he started talking back to it, sincerely—“No, no, it’s just that I’m so big—all of us out here are”—the authorities had come for him. He was adorable.
Some women invited her to coffee afterward, and she almost went. But instead she went to her favorite bookstore. She got an espresso, chocolate-dipped biscotti, and a copy of The New Yorker, sat at one of the window tables alone, and read away the day—about as close to heaven as she was going to get, what with this mortal coil. Every so often she imagined the big fish swimming out to center stage in her mind. The first time he mouthed to her, imploring, “Elizabeth is God,” the second time, beseeching, “Elizabeth is loved.” Then “Elizabeth must be crazy to listen to a big fish.”
Both courts were busy when Rosie arrived, and there was no sign of
Robert, so she sat and read the book she’d brought in her racket cover. She had to write a paper on it as summer homework for AP English when school started. The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, by Kazantzakis. James had owned a copy. It was one of the greatest books she had ever read, although she was only a few pages in. O Sun, great Oriental, my proud mind’s golden cap, I love to wear you cocked askew.
She struck a pose, legs outstretched like a 1950s bathing beauty, baby finger hooked over her bottom lip, like a girl in a window seat, and immersed herself in the poetry: Freedom, my lads, is neither wine nor a sweet maid, not goods stacked in vast cellars, no, nor sons in cradles; it’s but a scornful, lonely song the wind has taken. . . .
Robert sneaked up behind her. She wasn’t aware of him until he was ten feet away. Even so, she pretended to be immersed in her book until he reached over her shoulders and grabbed it out of her hands. “Hey!” he exclaimed, like she was his very best friend. “Can I borrow this?”
“Hey, yourself.” She looked down into her lap, mock disgruntled, and then up at him. He was only a few feet away. He’d shaved, and the skin there was paler, and God, his lashes were so long and black that his eyes were like caterpillars. He got to his feet and bent down to pull her up. Her heart raced.
“How are you?” he asked. “Getting ready for school?” She groaned. “Oh, senior year’s a breeze—junior year is the killer. And I’ll help you with your college apps.” He took a ball out of the pocket of his khaki shorts, bounced it menacingly on the court. “You ready? I’ve been practicing my toss at home.”
She found herself dipping and ducking with such shyness, wondering whether or not he had heard about the bust. Probably not. “We need to warm up for a while, first,” she said, turning around. “Otherwise, an old guy like you might get injured.” She was so glad to see him. She felt genuinely happy for the first time since the party—more like herself, bu
t older.
“Ow,” he cried. “That’s hitting below the belt.” But he was smiling. It made her think of what was below his belt. She walked back to the baseline.
When she turned to face him, he was squinting at her like now she was in real trouble, and he whacked a ball that nearly hit her. She hit it back, and they rallied, low, hard shots, until he missed. He had gotten better so fast, and she told him this when they met at the net to gather the balls. She took her sunglasses off and used them to sweep back her hair. “Look at you,” she said in the voice of encouragement she used with her kids at church. “You’re doing great.”
“Thank you,” he drawled. He looked into her face for a moment, her eyes, as if searching for something. “Hey—I hope you don’t mind my asking, but what is that thing on your eye—that thickening?”
Her heart sank. She’d thought he was going to ask her out, she really had, no matter how crazy that was. “Oh, you never noticed it before?” she said. “It’s called a pterygium. It’s a sun injury to my eye, from all those years I played on the junior circuit. I can get surgery on it if I ever care enough.” He was studying her, like an eye doctor. She was terribly embarrassed.
“Can I ask you something?” she countered. He nodded. Her heart knocked in her chest like a woodpecker—what was she doing? She didn’t even have a question to ask him. She pulled a ball against her shoe with her racket, and expertly jerked it so it dropped and bounced; with one hit, she caught it on the strings of her racket and froze it, in rapid succession like a top. She panned the court behind him until she knew he was looking at her, and she looked at him, and then smiled like the world’s biggest jerk. Quick, think of something!
“Okay—you know that line of Walt Whitman’s, ‘You are so much sunshine to the square inch’?” He nodded. “Well, in terms of physics, is it true?”