Ark (4 page)

And so, yes, if he were being perfectly honest, he had been pleased, in part, to learn this morning that his sister, Sondra, was suing him. He had even said thank you to the man who'd shown up at his door, a kind of Dom DeLuise lookalike, to serve him with papers. No question, ninety percent of his being, give or take a percentage point, was appalled by his sister's behavior. Sondra appeared intent on destroying him. But that remaining ten percent, give or take a point, had been delighted. After the process server left, Oliver had gone into the kitchen of his large ranch-style home, squeezed six oranges, downed the fresh juice, and, savoring the last drops, begun to feel himself coming back to life. Had he been less than alive? Looking at the truth of it, not less than alive, just experiencing a deep state of boredom since beginning this new life. Christ, he was not ready to die. To fade away. He wanted action.

With his daughter Rebecca now on the line, he told her the news: Sondra was suing him, his wife, his parents, and his sister. Wasn't it outrageous? Could she imagine what it was like to be subject to this kind of aggression by a sibling? To think he had always felt guilty for having never given Rebecca a brother or sister. No more. She should consider herself one of the lucky ones. Why, who knew what kind of trials she might have had to endure had he and her mother reproduced a second or third time? There was no predicting it. Rebecca didn't have to thank him. But she should reconsider all her mentions of childhood loneliness and boredom and how she would have so enjoyed the presence of a sibling. Because the burdens of having two sisters had long outweighed the benefits. Rebecca didn't know. She couldn't understand. But it was a fact.

“Sondra is trying to put me and my parents in the grave!”

Rebecca was in the middle of lunch. The man keeping her company was Randy Nobel, her colleague at the firm. Nobel looked like Teddy Roosevelt without the glasses. The mustache was the same. Like the explorer-president, he was short, and his wardrobe was all Rough Rider, with the red cravat tied around the neck, the brown slouch hat, the shirt blue and flannel with bright gold buttons, along with the trousers and boots. He had broad shoulders and light eyes and full blond sideburns. They were at Carnegie Deli, and Nobel had put a generous feast on the table: a Nosh, Nosh Nanette, a Millie's Stuffed Cabbage. He seemed to mind being made to wait. What could she do about that? For ten minutes her father had been calling her. She'd had to answer. Clearly, it had been an emergency. But was Nobel sincerely angry? With a hundred more interesting places to rest his gaze, he was staring at her with a strange intensity. He might consider looking at the child at the adjacent table trying to stretch his mouth around his pastrami sandwich. Surely, this was more compelling than the vision of Rebecca on the phone.

Oliver was now asking his daughter how his sister could sue him for improper use of the
Shout!
corporate credit card.

“Improper
what
, Dad?” The restaurant was loud, and it was hard to hear.

“Improper use of the corporate credit card,” Oliver said. “And it's truly amazing how she, who expensed Range Rovers and ski trips for her family in the Alps, could come at me for this. It's bullshit. Utter bullshit. She says she saw me misuse our credit cards all the time. Of course, what else would she be doing if not dreaming up bullshit? Certainly she had nothing to do at the company. With no personality, no worthwhile ideas, she was of no use to us. Though she tells me, ‘Please,
Shout!
wouldn't have survived half as long if not for the deals I made.' ‘The deals you made?' I say. ‘
You?
You made no deals. But don't lie, you did expense cars and trips, gifts and groceries, flowers, health spas, stays for your dog at the kennel, nose jobs, mustache bleachings, everything. Doris and I never looked at the bills. That, conveniently enough, was your job, which you did so well—bravo. And to sue your own father and mother! Do you want to bring a curse on your house? Really, Sondra. Don't do this.'”

“Dad,” Rebecca interrupted, “I don't know what you're talking about. You have to slow down.” Then, to Nobel, she said, “I'm sorry.”

“It's not a problem,” he answered. Then he set his fork and knife on the table, adjusted the brim of his hat, and shifted back in his chair into a casual half-sitting, half-reclining posture.

Oliver was talking again of how he'd never given Rebecca siblings. He said he finally understood why. Yes, he'd foreseen just this sort of thing happening to her. That, despite his excellent parenting and his daughter being of sound mind, Rebecca would have likely woken one morning some twenty years from now to find that her brother or sister was declaring a perverse sort of war against her. Indeed, he knew just how it would have gone.

“You're an Arkin. This is what we get.”

There had been a long history of battles between family members. Any details which Oliver had stored in his mind now came out, helter skelter. He mentioned names of uncles and aunts and cousins and cousins once removed that were unfamiliar to Rebecca. Had Rebecca noticed how few extended family members were in attendance at any of the weddings and funerals? Had she thought about why?

“Lawsuits are your answer!”

Rebecca told Nobel, “Go ahead and eat. It's okay. I have to leave,” and she took her purse and coat and went out on Seventh Avenue. The city air seemed to hum at a decibel that canceled out her father's voice. She covered her ear and turned the corner, finding a doorway to stand in.

Oliver was saying, “Your grandparents gave Doris two hundred thousand dollars to start a new company. But should they have had to ask Sondra if it was okay with her?”

“Dad, start over. I missed everything you just said.”

“It's ridiculous. Completely and totally ridiculous. And I told Sondra…I told her, ‘You've got to be out of your fucking mind. You'll sue Mom and Dad for illegally competing against their own business. That's what you'll make of their giving Doris money? I mean, please. Can you try and be a little fucking honest with yourself? You're doing this because you're angry about where we are and what we're doing, that each of us are thriving while you're just getting fat in suburbia.' Sixteen million she wants from your grandparents.
Sixteen million
! And four million from me.”

“Four million!”

“Yes.”

Rebecca had to be back at her office in thirty minutes. Seeing a taxi, she got in the car and told the driver, “Fiftieth and Lexington.”

“And I said to her…I said, ‘Do you want us on the streets? Haven't you been to enough therapists to be beyond this bitterness? What about the medication, the yoga retreats, the water aerobics, is none of it helping?' She's even suing my wife. After being single for more than twenty years, I finally
get
married and she wants to do my marriage in. You know, I wish your grandfather hadn't missed her birth.”

“Missed her birth, Dad?”

“Have you never heard the story? When your grandmother was having Sondra, Ben was at a double feature around the corner from the hospital.”

“And?”

“
And
it says everything to Sondra about how little her father's cared for her and how she's been deprived of his love. She's always preferred to make excuses for herself rather than face the truth.”

“Dad—”

“But what a critic she's been of your grandparents since the beginning. I remember…I remember this doll she had. This Baby Clara. With that piece of plastic your aunt would instruct your grandmother about the correct way to hold, to feed, to clothe, to burp, to change, and to comfort a child. No wait…wait, and there'd been this day that Doris had torn off Baby Clara's arms, and…and Sondra had hurried in a taxi to the New York Doll Hospital on Lexington.”

This had been a business in the lower sixties, a second-floor operation overlooking the bus-and-cab jammed avenue which had specialized in fixing dolls. Irving Chais, the head surgeon, had told Sondra, already fifteen years old, to go up the street to Bloomingdale's and shop while he operated. At the department store, Sondra had bought herself a pair of Holly Golightly Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses while Chais repaired the doll.

“…And what a speech she delivered to your grandmother when she got home: This was how you dealt with children in an emergency. This was the kind of attention she would provide her own sons and daughters. This was parenting.”

“Dad, I—”

“She always has been a righteous bitch.”

“Dad!”

“And nothing will hold up in court. She doesn't have a case. That's what my wife says, anyway.”

“Well, your wife is not a lawyer. I'm the lawyer. I'm going to help you with this, Dad.”

Oliver went through the large sliding-glass door into the kitchen to brew himself his fifth and sixth espresso shots of the morning. The machine grinded the beans and brewed the drink with the push of a button. He shook two Sweet'n'Low packets in the air, saying to his daughter, “On top of that, Rebecca, the stores are a total bust. Every month they lose more and more money. No one's spending now. I don't know what we'll do. I almost asked to borrow money from you last month. But Sheila—she has such pride, she wouldn't let me.”

Rebecca knew nothing of her father's finances. She had always assumed his wife, Sheila, was comfortable. After all, they lived on a beautiful piece of property on the Pacific, in Malibu. She said, “Dad, I do well. Not
that
well. I have a mortgage, you know. I couldn't keep you guys in business. You might consider closing the stores.”

“Obviously! But Sheila doesn't know when to admit defeat. She's spending everything on these boutiques. She says things will turn around.”

“And if they don't?”

“I don't know. I mean, we'll manage. We'll do something! Right now my concern is with your grandfather. He's having a very hard time with this. You should go see him.”

Rebecca straightened her legs across the back seat of the taxi. She said, “I'd like to, Dad. I'm so busy at work. I hardly have a minute to myself. I sleep some nights at the office, in my chair.”

“But you'll try and make the time?”

“I mean…yes, I will. I'm sure this whole suit is a total nightmare for him.”

“You don't even know the half of it.”

Back at the office, Rebecca took a toothbrush, floss, and toothpaste from her desk and went to the bathroom. Staring into the mirror above the sink, she brought the floss between her crooked front teeth, taking note of her face. The severely tired dark eyes were a frightful sight of rapid aging and distress. The long black hair had been neglected for months. Her skin was flaky, her neck streaked with red marks from nervous scratching. She washed her face. Beneath long fingers, the roughness of her cheeks provided yet another reason to wince.

After work, she changed into running clothes and jogged three miles through Central Park. She stretched afterward, in a yoga class. Back at her apartment, she took a bath. The hot water and green-tiled walls and the closed bathroom door quieted the part of her mind that could not stop going even in exhaustion. She put a wet cloth over her eyes. There was a glass of red wine on the sink, and, stepping out of the bath a moment later, she drank the wine down fast.

Tonight I'll sleep
, she told herself.

In bed, however, she was restless. The sheets pricked at her. The pillow lumped at her neck. Rebecca hung a sock over the red light of the alarm clock, but she could still feel the growing lateness of the hour. How much longer would she lie frustrated like this? When would she give up on sleep? At some point, it was only logical to get out of bed, turn on the lights, and submit to insomnia.

And so she did.

The blue jeans and black sweater at the top of the hamper were clean enough, and she pulled herself into the clothes and went down the hall with a bottle of red wine to see her neighbor, Gertrude Fish. It was almost 1:30 a.m., but Gertrude kept odd hours. You couldn't expect her to be up before noon, yet in the middle of night she was exuberant, chirping, and a little mad. Through the door, Rebecca could hear the old woman sanding wood. Rebecca rang the bell twice. It was after the third attempt that Gertrude chortled, then screamed, “Who is it!”

“It's Rebecca.”

“Rebecca? Oh. Hi. Yes.”

The door opened, and Gertrude removed her white medical mask and purple latex gloves and ordered her neighbor inside.

From the foyer, Rebecca saw furniture in the process of being constructed and finished pieces yet to be picked up by Gertrude's clients, as well as books and more books stacked in tall piles on the floor. The classical radio station was playing an Ives symphony. Gertrude made Rebecca sit in a chair covered in sawdust. There was a sinister quality to Gertrude's face. Short, tangled gray hair capped her five-foot frame. Her midsection had the slope and broadness of an old cash register. She wore a black turtleneck, brown corduroy pants, orthopedic shoes. It was her work outfit. She was working. Gertrude maintained a woodshop in her apartment, her style simple and attractive, functional. The noise generated from her electric saws and sanders, coupled with the toxic stains and finishes whose odors wafted into the hallway, didn't help Gertrude's status in the building. The co-op board had tried to put a stop to her operation many times. They threatened eviction. She bribed board presidents, not with cash—she didn't have much of that—but with the refurbishing of a rocking chair, the construction of a child's bed, a side table, an outdoor bench. They were astonished by Gertrude's skill at carpentry. Met throughout her life with low expectations—by her mother and father, in particular—Gertrude was used to this kind of treatment.

When Rebecca moved into her apartment three years before, a neighbor had warned her to stay away from Gertrude Fish. She had said that Gertrude “isn't all there.” Compared with “batty,” “deranged,” “a scare,” “bad for real estate value,” and “disruptive,” it was one of the nicer ways Rebecca had heard Gertrude described. As it was, the carpenter disliked her fellow tenants more. How many times had she explained to Rebecca that in 1974, when she'd first moved in, people like herself had occupied half the apartments, but that time had long since passed. That now you had to be a millionaire and have a second house even to get an interview. That they wouldn't let people of color or queers buy. That they were afraid of them, and that they were also afraid of her. And that Gertrude thought that they should be, because she despised them. It seemed she brought it up during every visit.