A Certain Age (5 page)

"Claudia, stop picking your nose," Natalie said. "It's disgusting. Do you have pinworm again?"

"No."

"I bet you got it at that fancy camp. I'm going to call the director. Don't they tell you to wash your hands? Why do you think I'm always telling you that? You know I can't be with you every second of your existence! . . . What time will you be back from golfing, John?"

"Around seven, I expect. What time are people coming this evening?"

"Eight, I suppose."

John rose to leave, though it was evident—at least psychologically—that he had vanished some time ago. "Bye, girls! See you all later!"

After a pause Florence started to clear the table. "I'm getting a glass of water. Does anybody want anything?"

"Did you lose some weight?" Natalie said.

"I don't think so," Florence said.

Natalie gave her a piercing stare, like a raptor seizing a rabbit. "I bet you lost five pounds. What are you now, a hundred and eight?" Within thirty seconds Natalie had evaluated her and correctly judged her weight. "Five six? Or Five seven?"

"Five eight," Florence muttered.

Natalie snorted. "I don't think so.
I'm
five seven; you're shorter than me." That wasn't true, Florence thought indignantly, though she refrained from saying anything. Natalie was taller than she only because she wore high heels all the time. The only reason Natalie had anything to do with her was because their mothers had been friends—and probably Natalie liked having an acquaintance who was so obviously inferior to her in terms of wealth, position, financial status and so forth. "You look good, but I think you were better five pounds heavier. Your face is a little gaunt. Although when you were heavier, you had kind of a little tummy. Claudia, you should try and get Florence's figure when you grow up. With your luck you'll end up with my little tits and your father's big hips. Oh, I have some news for you! Charlie Twigall is coming to dinner this evening!"

"I think you mentioned it," Florence said.

"Well, I knew he had asked you out for tonight, and he said 'Yes' right away, so he sounds like he might be interested. If I were you, Florence, I'd grab him right away. I know you don't think he's attractive—"

"No, I think he's attractive, in a kind of different way—"

"But there's not that much else out there on the market and you're not exactly virginal material. Basically, he's your last chance! If I were in your position, I'd play my cards right and go for him. He's very, very conservative; you should put your hair up and try not to wear much makeup. I think he's bringing his mother! Anyway, I'm off—I've got stuff to do all day in Bridge-hampton. I don't know what time I'll be back."

"Can I go to the beach, Mommy?" Claudia said. The kid was plain, there was no getting around that. Probably that was part of

the reason why Natalie had never warmed to her own child. Florence couldn't imagine acting so cold if she had a child. At least John and Natalie were rich enough to get Claudia plastic surgery—the works—later on. Then she would lock just like her mother.

"I don't want you going to the beach, Claudia!" Natalie said. "Can't you stick around for one day! Stay by the pool. Ask Florence to keep an eye on you while you're out there. Besides, you can't go anywhere. Your tutor's coming at three. Florence, you'll watch Claudia, won't you? I think there's stuff in the fridge if you want to fix lunch."

"Sure!" said Florence.

"She's really not too bright," Natalie reiterated to Florence with a certain pride as she went out. It seemed to Florence that Natalie had been seared clean of human insecurities, feelings, weaknesses, emotions. She was like an artificial flame, blunt, cold and ferocious. She got what she wanted; no one would dare cross a tiger. She got what she wanted; that was the main thing. And—at least from Florence's point of view—she seemed to have to pay no price. Goddess of vengeance: Kali. Though all goddesses were goddesses of vengeance when it came right down to it, Florence thought, as Natalie called from the front door, "Clean up and do the dishes when you're done in there!"

4

"You're not drinking water
from the tap,
are
you?"
said
Claudia.

Florence looked at her glass. "Yes. Why?"

"You're not supposed to drink the tap water out here!" Claudia said with a frightened grimace. "It's got those things in it."

"What's going to happen to me?"

Claudia shrugged.

"What subject does your tutor teach you?" Florence asked Claudia after a pause.

"I don't know," said the child grimly, spooning vast quantities of cherry jam onto the remaining half-slice of whole-grain toast. "Different things. Math. I don't like math. We grew some radishes. Something ate them, though, before they were big enough to eat."

"That must have been disappointing." Florence scrambled for an appropriate remark.

Unable to speak, Claudia nodded. A little dark pink goo blurted from the corner of her mouth. "Is there any toast left?" she said when she had swallowed.

Florence shrugged. "I don't know. You want me to go see?"

"That's okay." Claudia pulled the jar of jam toward her. "I just like the jelly part anyway. I don't need the bread." She removed a spoonful and began to pick the cherries from the mucilage. "I hate her."

"Who?"

"My mother. I hate her."

"Oh, Claudia, I'm sure you don't hate your mother," Florence said. "You just get mad at her sometimes." She wished she hadn't spewed this platitude. But what else was she supposed to say? Claudia was right, Natalie was awful, but how was she going to get through her whole life if she saw things so clearly and said them out loud? Anyway, she didn't know what to say to a child. She couldn't remember what it was like, except for a certain vague feeling of powerlessness—but that had never gone away. "You know, I saw a program, it was about these African hunting dogs. Or maybe they were hyenas—anyway, they live in packs. And it's one of the females, not the male, who's dominant. So everybody has to obey her. And all the other females have to give her their puppies. Nobody gets to keep a puppy except for the dominant female. And if the others don't obey her, she beats them up. But it—ah—it's for their own good." Somehow the story hadn't come out exactly right.

"I hate her."

"What are your plans until your tutor comes?" Florence said uncomfortably.

"Nothing. Watch TV, I guess."

"It's such a beautiful day!" Florence said. "Don't you want to swim in the pool? Your swimming pool is so beautiful!" Claudia sat lumpishly. "Nobody to play with." "I was thinking of going back to the beach. You want to

come?"

"My mother said I can't go to the beach." "I'm sure she meant by yourself. I can watch you." This seemed to cheer Claudia up. "Really?" she said. "Okay! I'll go get ready."

Florence lay in the sun by the pool, trying not to think about the night before. Perhaps it hadn't happened. The lives of these people seemed so unreal; nothing here was any more serious than the action unfolding in a film. It was only a matter of time before she, too, joined their ranks, abandoning feelings—anguish, despair, hope, caring, understanding—thoughts, wishes, dreams, ideals. She had so few of those things already. The world inhabited by Natalie and John had no more depth than a picture in a glossy magazine. Their days passed like the pages of a book. So what if the end of struggle meant the end of human suffering? What she wanted was to be the character in a poem she had once read, in which the heroine

. . .
should have sprung from Cardin s

at twenty, molded in bisque, draped in chiffon, her eyes

glazed with perfection,

her eyelids on gold hinges

swinging open and shut

at intervals marked by the sun.

Wasn't that the only dream for women at the end of the twentieth century, even for those who claimed to want other things? At least she was honest enough to admit it.

It was already warm. She decided she didn't need a towel. The outdoor shower was behind a bamboo gate, a cubicle built into the wall, and there was only one tap; the water ran hot for a few

minutes before turning cold, and she jumped out quickly, still unable to obliterate her queasy feeling. At least the sticky, oily salt was off her now, and the sensation that she had been powdered with potato fertilizer. The sour scent, crematorium-acrid, blew across the nearby fields.

Claudia came out onto the patio, carrying a huge bag, an umbrella, dressed in a bright pink polka-dot cotton hat with ruffles that tied under her chin and a long-sleeved blue-and-white-striped cotton robe that gave her the appearance of a miniature resident of a nineteenth-century workhouse. She seemed barely able to carry the bag. "I'll take that," Florence said.

"Do you need suntan lotion?" Claudia asked.

"I don't know."

"Here." Claudia handed her a huge pink plastic bottle. The stuff smelled like bubble gum and coconut. "You should put it on. I never tan. Mother has basal-cell carcinoma. That's from lying in the sun too long."

"Is it serious?"

Claudia shrugged. "I told her, there's no ozone layer, she shouldn't lie in the sun! She has to put on medicine that makes the cancers turn brown. She smokes cigarettes, sometimes, too. If I find them, I throw them in the toilet."

"It must be difficult for her to have a child who's constantly trying to turn her in. She's lucky you're not a Communist. Or a revolutionary in Central America."

"What?"

"Nothing," Florence said. They trudged in silence back across the potato field.

"This stuff they put on the field, it really stinks," Claudia said, dragging the umbrella in the sand. "It goes into the drinking water and you get cancer." Lancer:

"Last week they had to close the hospital because of some kind of thing that made everybody sick."

"What kind of thing?"

"I don't know. Some little whirly thing, in the water, that you

couldn't see, and in the hospital it moved into the ventilation or something and they had to shut it down because they couldn't . . . get it sterilized."

"Are you sure you know what you're talking about?" Florence stumbled. Her shoe flipped into the air. "Damn!" she said from the ground. "I almost broke my ankle."

"Here's your sandal," Claudia said, holding up the red patent leather shoe. "It's broken."

"Oh no, and those were my favorite sandals. My only Guccis, and they don't make them anymore." She grabbed it from Claudia. The heel of the shoe had twisted at a right angle in a way she knew couldn't be fixed. When she got up she stepped straight onto something sharp that gave her a puncture wound at least a half inch into her sole. "Ow!" she said. "Prickers! This just isn't my day."

They hobbled through the field. "By next year, my dad says, this will all be gone. They're going to build houses." The child was out of breath, sweaty, and stood transfixed, as if she already had sunstroke.

"Do you want me to carry the umbrella?" Florence said, though her foot hurt.

"Okay." She passed the umbrella to Florence. The metal handle was sticky to the touch.

"I think you got cherry jam on this umbrella," Florence said. "You know, your mother is one of my only friends."

"You're kidding!" said Claudia. "Poor you!"

"If you're single in New York, a single woman, I mean, nobody wants anything to do with you. If you're a single man, that's something different—everyone wants an extra single man at their dinner parties: married women like a man to flirt with, and to introduce to their single women friends, and men like an extra man around to play squash with, or golf."

Claudia looked up at her with earnest disbelief, though Florence didn't have a clue as to how much of what she was saying made sense to a kid. They spread the blanket at the back of the beach, where strands of coarse grass sprouted from gray sand. The

beach was private, except for residents, and was nearly empty, even on a July Saturday.

Claudia collected pearly jingle shells and smooth blue bits of clam shells—her "wampum"—and brought them back to their blanket for inspection before venturing off again. Florence liked her. Maybe it was only because Claudia appeared to like her, but there was something nice about being looked up to by someone so guileless. She could see nothing but trouble ahead for such a child. Who knew what she would do to punish Natalie when she got a bit older? Her options were infinite: she might become a Simone Weil, anorexic, working in a factory, attempting to reach personal sainthood. Or like that young woman sentenced to life in prison for revolutionary activities in Peru. It was hard to think of Natalie being chastised by such behavior, however. Promiscuity, drug addiction, adolescent pregnancy and out-of-wedlock childbirth—all of these had been meted out by so many others trying to teach their parents a lesson, there was no shock value left.

She must have fallen asleep. When she woke with the irritating sensation of being harassed by flies, Claudia was gone. She looked up and down the beach, but there was no sign. Suddenly panic hit. Earlier in the day the waves had been very strong. There was no way Claudia could swim without getting pulled out to sea. She ran down to the water. A man was walking up the beach with a dalmatian, which frolicked in a goofy, cartoonish manner. She ran over to him. "A kid—a little girl!" she said.